New Delhi, February, 04, 2021, By IBW Team

The Indian government has directed Twitter to comply with its order to remove content and accounts related to a hashtag that implies the new agricultural laws would be “genocide” for farmers, media reports stated quoting unnamed sources.

The government has also warned that the microblogging platform may face “penal action” over not complying with parts of its order to remove various tweets and block certain accounts over content related to the farmers’ protest, according to sources.

The government notice criticised the social media giant over unblocking dozens of accounts on Monday, noting that “the disproportionality of the said measure [blocking] cannot be decided (by) Twitter which is an intermediary bound by the orders of the Central Government (of India).”

The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) had over the weekend directed Twitter to block around 250 tweets and Twitter accounts that were making allegedly “fake, intimidator and provocative tweets” on January 30 with hashtags accusing the Modi government of planning a farmers’ ‘genocide’.