The micro-blogging site, Twitter today denied Communications and IT Minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad access to his own account for almost an hour over the alleged violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of the USA.
Mr Prasad objected to the action saying it was in the gross violation the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 where twitter failed to provide him any prior notice before denying access to his own account.
He said, it is apparent that his statements calling out the high handedness and arbitrary actions of Twitter, particularly sharing the clips of his interviews to TV channels and its powerful impact, have clearly ruffled its feathers.
The Minister added that it is now apparent as to why Twitter is refusing to comply with the Intermediary Guidelines because if Twitter does comply, it will be unable to arbitrarily deny access to an individual’s account which does not suit their agenda.
Mr Prasad also said, Twitter’s actions indicate that they are not the harbinger of free speech that they claim to be, but are only interested in running their own agenda, with the threat that if one does not tow, they will arbitrarily remove them from their platform.
He added that no matter what any platform does, they will have to abide by the new IT Rules fully and there will be no compromise on that.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a legislation enacted under the Clinton administration in 1998.
The legislation was brought in furtherance of the United States’ commitment to the two World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaties.
The DMCA also addresses a number of other significant copyright-related issues.
The act seeks to protect access to a copyrighted work. It also gives web hosts and Internet service providers (ISP’s) a safe harbour from copyright infringement claims, if they implement certain notice or takedown procedures.
WhatsApp us