MeitY says Twitter’s blog post on blocking orders ‘unusual’

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India (MeitY) on Wednesday said it would soon respond to Twitter’s blog post on the recent blocking orders.

“Upon the request of Twitter seeking a meeting with the Govt., the Secretary IT was to engage with senior management of Twitter. In this light a blog post published prior to this engagement is unusual. Govt. will share its response soon,” the ministry said in a post on the Indian social networking platform, Koo. 

Earlier, Twitter published a detailed blog post on steps it had taken following the blocking orders. The social networking platform, however, said it would not take action against accounts that consist of news media entities, journalists, activists, and politicians.

“Because we do not believe that the actions we have been directed to take are consistent with Indian law, and, in keeping with our principles of defending protected speech and freedom of expression, we have not taken any action on accounts that consist of news media entities, journalists, activists, and politicians. To do so, we believe, would violate their fundamental right to free expression under Indian law,” the company said in the post this morning.

Twitter revealed that it had taken a “range of enforcement” actions including permanent suspension in certain cases against more than 500 accounts escalated across all MeitY orders for violating the rules. It also withheld a portion of accounts identified in blocking orders under its Country Withheld Content policy within India.