Twitter locks Ravi Shankar Prasad’s Twitter handle over alleged copyright infringement
On Friday, June 25th, 2021, Twitter denied access to the account of the Electronics & Information Technology Minister of India, Ravi Shankar Prasad. Though account was available for the public, access to the account was restricted.
According to the message shown by Twitter, the account had been locked due to a complaint received that the content on the social media handle was violative of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Twitter stated that they have a repeat copyright infringer policy. According to the policy, multiple DMCA notices may lead to the suspension of the account and that per the act, the copyright owner has the provision of notifying Twitter about the infringement of their copyrighted works.
Twitter, upon receipt of a valid DMCA notice, removes the infringing work.
In the current scenario, Twitter further warned about any further copyright violations, and stated that “any additional notices against your account may result in your account being locked again and potentially suspended.”
The Minister’s account was unlocked later, and he was allowed to access the account.
In a thread of Tweets about the said incident, Ravi Shankar Prasad has alleged that such actions by Twitter were in gross violation of Rule 4(8) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
The said rules, mandate that the users of the platform be given prior notice when an intermediary removes or disables access to any information, data, or communication link.
Ravi Shankar Prasad while calling out actions of Twitter arbitrary and in disregard of the new IT rules, 2021, stated that,
“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. 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. 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.”
While adding that he has not received any complaints from any news channels regarding copyright violations about the interviews shared on social media, since several years, he also stated that,
“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.”
Recently Twitter has been criticised widely for not following the new IT rules, as well as, its unaccountable and opaque policies of content moderation.