New Delhi, Communications and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said Twitter denied him access to his account for almost an hour on the alleged ground that there was a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of the USA and subsequently they allowed him to access the account.

In a series of tweets, the Union Minister said, 'Friends! Something highly peculiar happened today. Twitter denied access to my account for almost an hour on the alleged ground that there was a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of the USA and subsequently they allowed me to access the account.'

'Twitter’s actions were in gross violation of Rule 4(8) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 where they failed to provide me any prior notice before denying me access to my own account,' he said.

It is apparent that my statements calling out the high handedness and arbitrary actions of Twitter, particularly sharing the clips of my interviews to TV channels and its powerful impact, have clearly ruffled its feathers,' the Union Minister said.

He said further, it is now apparent as to why Twitter is refusing to comply with the Intermediary Guidelines because if Twitter does comply, it would be unable to arbitrarily deny access to an individual's account which does not suit their agenda.

The Union Minister said furthermore, in the past several years, no television channel or any anchor has made any complaints about copyright infringements with regard to these news clips of his interviews shared on social media.

'Twitter’s actions indicate that they are not the harbinger of free speech that they claim to be but are only interested in running their own agenda, with the threat that if you do not tow the line they draw, they will arbitrarily remove you from their platform,' he said.

'No matter what any platform does they will have to abide by the new IT Rules fully and there shall be no compromise on that,' the Union Minister said.

(Agencies)