The Pakistan government’s official Twitter account has been withheld in India.
When anyone tries to access the Twitter account of the Pakistan government, it says, “Account Withheld @GovtofPakistan’s account has been withheld in India in response to a legal demand.” This is the third time Pakistan’s Twitter account has been restricted to be viewed in India.
Prior to this, in October 2022 and July 2022 Pakistan government’s Twitter account was withheld in India. However, eventually the restrictions were lifted.
According to Twitter guidelines, the microblogging site takes such action in response to a valid legal demand, such as a court order. Currently, the Twitter feed of the Pakistan government “@GovtofPakistan” is not visible to Indian users.
In June last year, Twitter in India banned official accounts of Pakistan Embassies in the United Nations, Turkey, Iran and Egypt. In August, India blocked eight YouTube-based news channels, including one operating from Pakistan and one Facebook account for posting fake, anti-India content online.
The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in a statement that the action was taken by imposing emergency powers under Information Technology Rules, 2021. The blocked Indian YouTube channels were observed to be using fake and sensational thumbnails, images of news anchors and logos of certain TV news channels to mislead the viewers to believe that the news was authentic.
(With inputs from ANI)