Twitter Grilled By Tharoor Led Parliamentary Panel On Blocking Amit Shah’s Account In 2020

Amit Shah’s Twitter display picture was removed by Twitter in response to a “report from the copyright holder”. The parliamentary panel members sought an explanation from Twitter officials.

Home Minister Amit Shah (File Photo)

The parliamentary committee on Thursday grilled officials of Twitter and raised issues of blocking the account of Union Home Minister Amit Shah in November 2020. The panel, led by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, met Facebook’s Public Policy Director Shivnath Thukral and Mahima Kaul, Public Policy Director, India & South Asia, Twitter, along with other officials from both platforms.

The parliamentary standing committee on Information Technology on Thursday interacted separately with representatives of Facebook, Twitter and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on the issue of safeguarding citizens' rights, preventing misuse of social news media platforms, and women security in the digital space.

During the interaction with Twitter representatives, some members, mostly from the ruling BJP, raised the issue of the platform locking the account of Shah for a short period late last year. Twitter explained the action was taken as per their policy after algorithms flagged a copyright issue. However, the matter was clarified and the account was restored within half an hour, they told the panel.

Some BJP members questioned the fact-checking mechanism at Twitter and wondered how the account of the country’s home minister was locked.

Committee members also flagged the issue of Twitter misrepresenting the Indian map.

When some members asked the basis on which Twitter was removing contents and blocking accounts the company representatives said they want to create a “healthy platform”. But some members were not satisfied and sought details on how decisions were made to block some accounts and leave others, according to PTI.

In the backdrop of a huge controversy over hate speech and content being closely monitored and removed in the United States, some members -- especially those from the ruling dispensation -- questioned how social media platforms could remove content when there is no law against it in India.

Both Twitter and Facebook said they have strong rules regarding the content and would remove content when necessary to ensure it does not incite violence.