This is the third time in the last one year that the Pakistan government’s official Twitter account has been blocked in India.
American multinational microblogging platform Twitter has blocked the account of the Pakistan government from being viewed in India. The Twitter handle of the Pakistan government (@GovtofPakistan) displays the message “account withheld.”
According to a notice on the social media platform, the Twitter account of India’s immediate neighbor has been withheld in response to a legal demand. According to a Reuters report, the government of Pakistan’s Twitter account, however, remains visible in other countries like the United States and Canada.
“If we (Twitter) receive a valid and properly scoped request from an authorized entity, it may be necessary to withhold access to certain content in a particular country from time to time. Such withholdings will be limited to the specific jurisdiction that has issued the valid legal demand or where the content has been found to violate local law(s),” a blog on Twitter’s help center explained.
It is noteworthy that this is the third time in the last one year that the Pakistan government’s official Twitter account has been blocked in India. According to a CNBC report, similar incidents have been reported in July and October 2022. Meanwhile, Twitter India previously also blocked the official accounts of Pakistan Embassies in the United Nations, Egypt, Turkey, and Iran in June last year.
Elsewhere, Elon Musk, who is also the head of the American electric car company Tesla, bought Twitter for $44 billion last year. Following Musk’s takeover, the Blue Bird has managed to garner regular headlines about its weakening content moderation policies, a surge in fake accounts, and re-activation of accounts of some controversial celebrities.
The Musk-owned site recently announced some new rules for the social media platform. Starting on April 15, only Twitter Blue subscribed users will be able to vote in polls. Not only this, only Blue subscribed users’ tweets will be recommended to other users, resulting in a low reach for users who opt to not buy the premium subscription of the micro-blogging platform.
