Several Twitter accounts including verified ones belonging to celebrities and organisations were suspended for more than 12 hours on Monday after the government said users were posting content inciting violence.
Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) acted on the request of home affairs ministry on the suspension of an unspecified number of accounts that were allegedly posting content seeking to foment violence.
The microblogging site withheld an unspecified number of accounts in India in response to a “legal request” and then restored them around 9 pm on Monday.
Last week, protest against the new farm bill turned violent when riot police were sent to tackle the situation. One demonstrator was killed and hundreds of people were injured including police officers.
The Guardian quoted government source as saying, “The order was issued against accounts that were using the hashtag #modiplanningfarmersgenocide that started on 30 January.”
The accounts included those of newsmagazine Caravan, Kisan Ekta Morcha (the IT cell of Samyukt Kisan Morcha), tribal leader Hansraj Meena and actor Sushant Singh.
A Twitter spokesperson previously said that many countries have laws that may apply to Tweets and/or Twitter account content.
Sources in Delhi police confirmed that its cyber cell had flagged around 250 accounts. “The flagged accounts were peddling fake news, causing disharmony, disrupting public peace and posting old content without clarifications from police,” said a police officer. He added that authorities would keep monitoring social media for any such activity.