NEW DELHI: On a day when several Twitter users started migrating to Mastodon, users of the social media platform said Twitter’s suspension policies were ‘arbitrary’ and ‘discriminatory’.
Recently, there was a social media furor after former SC lawyer Sanjay Hegde’s account was not restored by Twitter.
Hegde, who sent a notice to Twitter, said, “Twitter unfairly blocked my account...Twitter’s AI bots were unfairly made to block my account. I expected a human who read the appeal to understan... The appeal was mechanically denied.”Hegde has also made a representation before I&T department. “I haven’t heard from either the ministry or Twitter,” he said.
When Twitter India was sent a query on the suspension of Hegde’s account, it told this paper to refer to its statement put out on Thursday, “There’s been a lot of discussion this week about Twitter’s perceived bias in India. To be clear, whether it’s the development of policies, product features, or enforcement of our Rules, we are impartial and do not take action based upon ideology or political viewpoint.”
Kavita Krishnan, secretary, All India Progressive Women’s Association, said Twitter on several occasions had not responded to issues flagged by the activist.
“It is absolutely useless to flag misogynistic abuse, death threats, rape threats, racist abuse, casteist abuse. Invariably, they have the template response that it does not violate their guidelines,” said Krishnan.