Twitter replies to Republic's queries on locking Law Min's account; cites copyright policy

In response to Republic Media Network's 5 questions on its one-hour lockdown of Union IT & Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad's account on Friday morning, Twitter has maintained that a temporary restriction was placed on the Minister's account due to a DMCA notice. Stating that the action was taken in response to a copyright complaint, Twitter said that tweet in question has been withheld. 

However, it did not comment on the usual norm of allowing a user to contest the copyright infringement when claimed by a party nor did it acknowledge if the San Francisco-based microblogging site was aware that restricting the Union Minister's account without any prior notice would be a violation of India's IT rules. 

“We can confirm that the Honourable Minister’s account access was temporarily restricted due to a DMCA notice only and the referenced Tweet has been withheld. Per our copyright policy, we respond to valid copyright complaints sent to us by a copyright owner or their authorized representatives," a Twitter spokesperson told Republic Media Network on Friday, in an answer to all the five questions posed. 

Republic's 5 questions to Twitter on the minister's account being locked

• Can we know the origin of strike notice for copyright violation which prompted Twitter to lock the Minister's account?
• Can we know who claimed copyright over the content tweeted by the Minister?
• Was any prior intimation given by Twitter to @rsprasad handle of the Minister?
• Is Twitter aware that it might be in violation of Rule 4 (8) of the newly notified Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 which clearly stipulates that whenever a content that does not belong to the user is shared on a social media platform the social media intermediary shall ensure that prior to removing or disabling access, it has provided the user who has shared such a content with a notification explaining the action being taken and the grounds or reasons for such action. The intermediary must provide the user with an adequate and reasonable opportunity to dispute the action being taken by such intermediary.
• Did Twitter follow the Rule 4(8) of the new guidelines?

Twitter locks Ravi Shankar Prasad's account 

In a significant escalation amidst the ongoing tussle over the IT rules, Union IT & Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad was denied access to his Twitter account on Friday morning for nearly an hour, until the San Francisco-based micro-blogging itself issued a warning and unlocked the account. 

In the seemingly automated message that the Minister's team saw on attempting to access his account, Twitter had cited violations based on a United States law over the Union Minister posting clips of his TV interviews criticizing the site for not complying with India's new IT rules which have come into effect since May 26 this year. As per sources, 3 interviews, including one with Republic Media Network, were adjudged by Twitter to be violative of the US law. While Ravi Shankar Prasad's account was open for public viewing, Twitter blocked the Union Minister from making any tweets or other activities. 

"Your account has been locked because Twitter received a compliant Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) Notice for content posted to your Twitter account. Under the DMCA copyright owners can notify Twitter claiming that a user has infringed their copyrighted works. Upon receipt of a valid notice, Twitter will remove the identified material. Twitter maintains a repeat copyright infringer policy under repeat infringer accounts will be suspended. Accruing multiple DMCA strikes may lead to suspension of your account," Twitter's message read. 

Commenting on the matter, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad pointed out that Twitter's actions were in violation of Rule 4(8) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 where they failed to provide him prior notice before denying access to his own account. RS Prasad highlighted that it now 'apparent why Twitter is refusing to comply' with the new IT rules because if it does, the US-based social media platform would be unable to arbitrarily deny access to an individual’s account 'which does not suit their agenda.'