Twitter Removes Distorted Map From Website After Criticism For Showing J&K, Ladakh As Separate Country

In November 2020, national security analyst Nitin A Gokhale found that Twitter had labelled the Indian territory of Leh in Ladakh as part of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Representative Photo

New Delhi: In a significant development, Twitter has removed the distorted map of India from its website after the microblogging platform received a lot of criticism over the same.

Twitter fueled another controversy as its website showed a distorted map of India on the career section on its website. The map that appeared on the ‘Tweep Life’ section showed Jammu & Kashmir, and Ladakh detached from India.

Sources had revealed that that the Central government planned to issue a strict notice to Twitter asking it to remove the distorted map or actions will be taken against the microblogging platform.

This is not the first time that the social media platform showed the wrong map of India. In November 2020, national security analyst Nitin A Gokhale found that Twitter had labelled the Indian territory of Leh in Ladakh as part of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Gokhale, the founder of Strat News Global, had marked his location as ‘Hall of Fame Leh’. However, the microblogging platform displayed the area as a part of PRC. The screengrab of the video read, “Nitin A Gokhale was live. Jammu and Kashmir, People’s Republic of China.”

The government of India issued a warning to CEO Jack Dorsey over the misrepresentation of the Indian map and later Twitter India issued an apology and removed the images and related tweets.

Twitter is already in a tussle with the government of India over compliance with the New IT rules.

Twitter lost legal protection in India when the government stripped it of its intermediary status. This means that Twitter will not be considered as a platform hosting people’s tweets but it will be editorially responsible for the content - which makes it liable to face action in case of objectionable content posted on its platform.