Twitter explains reasons for blocking Shashi Tharoor and Ravi Shankar’s accounts

New Delhi: Twitter finally explained the reasons for blocking Shashi Tharoor and Ravi Shankar’s account after the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information and Technology asked Twitter to explain in writing on what ground it locked the accounts.

Twitter explained that “We had blocked Shashi Tharoor and Ravi Shankar’s accounts because that social media platform cited ‘copyright infringement’ under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act.”

Union Information and Technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad’s handle and Congress MP Shashi Tharoor’s handle were blocked temporarily.

According to the media report, Last month, Twitter had restricted access to Prasad’s account ‘@rsprasad’ for almost an hour on the grounds that he violated the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, but the minister said the microblogging platform violated new IT rules that require intermediary or a host of user content to give prior notice before locking access.

Soon after Prasad flagged the issue, Tharoor tweeted that he too had faced something similar. “Raviji, the same thing just happened to me.

Later, Prasad said that if the microblogging site invoked a US copyright rule to justify its action, then it should also abide by India’s new IT rules while operating in the country.

Twitter in its written explanation said, “Twitter received DMCA notices from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) alleging that video Tweets posted on their (Prasad and Tharoor) accounts infringed copyrighted works owned by Sony Music Entertainment. For Mr. Prasad, the DMCA notice was in reference to the original work (i.e. alleged infringement) of A.R. Rahman’s: Maa Tujhe Salaam… For Dr, Tharoor, the DMCA notice was in reference to the original work (i.e. alleged infringement) of Boney M. -Rasputin.”