The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has issued a notice to social media giant Twitter for distorting the map of India. The notice has been issued after it was found that Twitter was showing Leh as part of Jammu and Kashmir, instead of the Union Territory of Ladakh.
The micro-blogging site has been asked to explain why legal action should not be initiated against it for disrespecting India’s territorial integrity. The notice issued on 9th November had given 5 days to Twitter to submit its reply.
According to sources, the Ministry had issued a notice to the Global Vice President of Twitter. The Ministry notice says that showing Leh as part of Jammu and Kashmir is a deliberate attempt by Twitter to undermine the will of sovereign Parliament of India, which had declared Ladakh as a Union Territory of India with headquarter in Leh.
The Ministry has directed Twitter to explain within five working days why legal action should not be initiated against Twitter and its representatives for disrespecting the territorial integrity of India. If the govt of India is not satisfied with the reply submitted by Twitter, it may face actions, including possible ban under the section 69 of the IT Act.
The matter came to notice after defence analyst Nitin Gokhale had noticed on October 20 that Twitter was marking his location Leh as being part of Jammu of Kashmir. It was after Twitter had presumably corrected an error in its location data, where Jammu and Kashmir was shown as inside People’s Republic of China.
On October 18, Nitin Gokhale has posted a live video on Twitter from Leh, he was surprised to see that his location was marked as Jammu and Kashmir, People’s Republic of China. Therefore, Twitter had got both the country and the union territory wrong.
Following the outrage on social media over this serious error, Twitter had issued a statement saying that it was a technical issue, and said that they had investigated and resolved the geotag problem. At that time, the govt of India had issued a warning to Twitter, objecting to distortion of India’s territorial integrity.
