Union Minister for Information and Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad was on Friday denied access to his Twitter account for nearly one hour on alleged violations of US Digital Millennium Copyright Act. 

In a post on Twitter, Prasad said Twitter’s actions were in “gross violations of Rule 4(8) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 where they failed to provide me any prior notice before denying me access to my own account”.

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Prasad said that his “calling out the high handedness of arbitrary actions of Twitter” have “ruffled its feather. 

He further stated that Twitter’s actions confirm they are “not the harbringer of free speech, that they claim to be but are only interested in running their own agenda, with the threat that if you do not tow the line they draw, they will arbitrarily remove you from their platform.”

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Twitter is currently in a battle with the Union government over the new IT rules that were implemented from May 26. Twitter has said it intends to comply with the rules, but the government alleges it has so far not committed to the same. 

Prasad said, “No matter what any platform does they will have to abide by the new IT Rules fully and there shall be no compromise on that.”