Senior executives of Twitter in India may face arrest if they do not comply with the Union government’s directive to block the accounts with inflammatory content, particularly those with the hashtag on farmers’ genocide.
The government expressed its displeasure over the US micro-blogging site’s refusal to follow the order passed as per Section 69A of the Informational Technology Act, 2000.
The government stated that its order regarding the blocking of such accounts is non-negotiable.
Twitter partially complied with the order by blocking about half of the accounts which the government sought to remove from the site, a report stated.
The company may, however, approach the courts to defend its right to free expression on behalf of the people it serves.
Union IT secretary Ajay Prakash Sawhney on Wednesday met Twitter executives Monique Meche and Jim Baker and said that the use of the controversial hashtag was neither journalistic freedom nor freedom of expression.
“Such irresponsible content could provoke the situation,” Ajay Prakash Sawhney said.
The meeting also highlighted how restrained Twitter was in handling the problems on Capitol Hill in Washington DC as compared to its dealing with the farmer’s agitation in the Red Fort.