The former Journalist Rana Ayyub shares a notice she received from Twitter on Sunday which informs her that her Twitter handle has been withheld in India under Information Technology act, 2000.
Who is Rana Ayyub ?
Rana Ayyub is a Indian Journalist and an opinion columnist in The Washington Post. She’s popularly known for her work ‘Tehelka’. During which, because of her report, Amit Shah – the close associate of Narendra Modi was held in jail for several months back in 2010.
In Tehelka, she worked as an investigation journalist, using sting operation as her weapon throughout her investigation. Moreover, she wrote a book named ‘Gujarat Files’ which is based on her sting operations.
The Twitter notice –
Recently, on her Twitter handle, she shares a notice and captions, ‘Hello Twitter, what exactly is this?’. The Twitter notice read as, ‘In order to comply with Twitter’s obligations under India’s local laws, we have withheld the following account in India under the country’s Information Technology Act, 2000: the content remains available elsewhere.’
‘As Twitter strongly believes in defending and respecting the voice of the people who use our service, it is our policy to notify account holders if we receive a legal request from an authorized entity (such law enforcement or government agency) to remove content from their account.
We provide notice whether or not the user lives in the country where the request originated’, it read further.
Prasar Bharati’s CEO received same notice –
After Rana’s Tweet got in the limelight, the Prasar Bharati CEO Shashi Shekhar Vempati replied to her Tweet saying that Twitter notice is ‘either a bug or a delayed reaction to past incidents.’
However, Shashi Shekhar Vempati also received such notice from Twitter many times. Also, he is one of those people who’s Twitter accounts were withheld last year.
The Ministry of Home affairs and law enforcement agencies requested the microblogging company to protect any scope of law and order situation during the farmers agitation.
Twitter’s statement –
The microblogging company withheld the accounts because they are forced to play this act under legal demand, says Twitter. Moreover, Twitter policy states that, ‘Such withholdings will be limited to the specific jurisdiction that has issued the valid legal demand or where the content has been found to violate local law(s)’.
Rana Ayyub’s Tweet :-
Hello @Twitter ,what exactly is this ? pic.twitter.com/26rRzp0eYu
— Rana Ayyub (@RanaAyyub) June 26, 2022
