The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and many of its organisations have moved to Koo, a Made-in-India alternative to micro blogging platform Twitter, Your Story has reported. According to the report, Ministry of Electronics and IT, MyGov, Digital India, India Post, NIC, NIELIT, SAMEER, Common Services Center, UMANG app, Digi Locker, NIXI, STPI, CDAC, and CMET have verified handles on the platform.
The move comes at a time when the Government is mulling actions against Twitter for failing to comply with its orders on removing Khalistani and anti-India accounts. Sources told News18, “The accounts ordered blocked are of Khalistani sympathisers, or those backed by Pakistan and operating from foreign territories. Many of the accounts are also automated bots that were used for sharing and amplifying misinformation and provocative contents on farmers protest.”
We can also confirm that the government has taken note of the Twitter activity of CEO Jack Dorsey which hints at an anti-India bias. Sources within the Ministry said, “It is also pertinent to note that a few days ago global CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey had liked several tweets made by foreign based celebrities in support of farmer protests. In view of this, defiance of Government orders by Twitter raises several questions.”
As we had reported earlier, Jack Dorsey had ‘liked’ tweets that hailed pop star Rihanna for tweeting in support of the ‘farmer protests’ and called it efforts to ‘uplift the oppressed’.
It is only recently that Twitter had refused to block accounts that trended a hashtag on the platform that accused Prime Minister Modi of attempting a ‘farmer genocide’. The Indian Government requested the tweets and the accounts to be blocked due to the potential of inciting violence during an already tense situation following the Republic Day riots but the platform refused to comply.
Following that, the government had sent a notice and now, they have requested that anti-India accounts be blocked. The Indian Government is not the only government that is furious with Twitter over its arbitrary decisions regarding speech on its platform. French President Emmanuel Macron said recently that such decisions must be taken according to laws passed by democratically elected representatives and not left to private tech giants.
Sources also noted that “Twitter has not yet challenged any of these orders in any court of India either. Logically any company is free to appeal against any Government order if it feels it cannot comply with that order.” Thus, quite clearly, the platform is choosing to restrict speech and permit them based on its whims which are currently antithetical to the larger interests of the nation.
