Twitter bans Pakistan government’s account in India

In response to a court request, the Pakistan government’s official Twitter account has been blocked in India. When attempting to access the account, the notice “Account Withheld @GovtofPakistan’s account has been withheld in India in response to a legal demand” will appear.

This marks the third time that the account has been restricted in India, with the previous incidents occurring in July and October of 2022.

Twitter takes such action in accordance with its guidelines when presented with a valid legal demand, typically in the form of a court order. As a result, the Twitter feed of the Pakistan government “@GovtofPakistan” is currently unavailable to Indian users.

Twitter in India blocked official accounts for Pakistan embassies in the United Nations, Turkey, Iran, and Egypt last year. In addition, India shut eight YouTube news stations, including one based in Pakistan, as well as a Facebook account that was spreading “fake, anti-India content” online in August.

According to a statement from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the emergency powers under Information Technology Rules, 2021, were used to take this action.

The blocked Indian YouTube channels were found to be using fake and sensational thumbnails, images of news anchors, and logos of certain TV news channels to mislead viewers into believing that the news was genuine.

The Pakistani Ministry of Commerce has stated that Pakistan’s inclusion on the list in 2018 resulted in additional regulatory burdens that affected Pakistani companies doing business with the EU. The removal of Pakistan from this list is therefore expected to ease the regulatory burden on Pakistani companies and facilitate trade with the 27-member bloc.