Activist-actress Swara Bhasker on Thursday claimed that her X (formerly Twitter) account has been locked/disabled over two images she posted on Republic Day. Addressing 𝕏 in a post on Instagram, she alleged that she can’t access it and permanent suspension has been approved by the social media platform’s teams.
According to Swara Bhasker, her two tweets with two images have been marked as ‘copyright infringements’. Giving details of the two images, she wrote, “One with an orange background and text in Hindi Devnaagri script reading “Gandhi Hum Sharmindaa hain, Tere qaatil zindagi hain” is a popular slogan of the progressive movement in India. There is no copyright violation. It is akin to urban modern folk idiom. The second image marked as a violation is an image of MY OWN child with her face concealed waving an Indian flag and with writing ‘HAPPY REPUBLIC DAY India’.”
Swara wondered how there could be a copyright strike on a photo of her child, asking “How can this possibly be a copyright infringement???? Who has a copyright on my child’s likeness???” She added, “Both of these complaints are ridiculous and untenable by any rational, logical and objective understanding of any legal definition of copyright. If these tweets have been mass reported they are aimed to harass the user i.e. myself and are aimed at suppressing my freedom of speech and expression.”
At the time of writing this report, the 𝕏 account of Swara Bhasker remains visible, which means it has not been suspended but may have been locked. When an X account is locked, the user can’t post anything on it, but others can view the existing posts.
