Six 'fake' Twitter accounts blocked, were blacklisted by PM's office

New Delhi: Hours after hashtags like Emergency2012 on Twitter protested against the government's decision to block nearly 300 web pages, the micro-blogging site has today blocked six accounts that the Prime Minister's Office had complained about. Dr Manmohan Singh's office says these accounts violate Twitter's policies by impersonating his official account - they do not disclose, through using words like "fan" or "fake" in their twitter handles that they are not the real deal.

That move, combined with the government's order to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to disable many Web pages and sites, has led to debate and anger about whether free speech is being curtailed. The government says that the blacklisted websites and pages threaten communal harmony and a fragile peace that is only now returning after rumours and incendiary content - circulated online and through text messages - led to an exodus of North Eastern migrants from cities that they were working or studying in.

"We are taking action only against those sites which can cause damage. We will not level charges unnecessarily on others be it SMS or Facebook or Twitter. Be assured of that. Only those who are involved in this and who have done this job of inciting people will face problems and nobody else," Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde said.

But yesterday, a copy of the government' directive to ISPs was leaked and the Twitter accounts of two journalists were on the list of items to be blocked. So were Web pages for Al Jazeera television, and Australian Broadcasting Company. The reporters said they were being punished for their criticism of the government. Sources in the Department of Telecom tried to contain the fallout by suggesting that the list being circulated was incomplete, but nobody offered a clear explanation for why the reporters had been included.

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Twitter had been issued a warning by the government for not responding to its request. Yesterday, the company informed the Department of Telecom that it was experiencing "technical difficulties" in blocking 28 Web pages or URLs.

Those are separate from the accounts that the Prime Minister's Office wanted disabled. Yesterday, Dr Singh's communications advisor, Pankaj Pachauri, said, "Twitter has agreed to block the six fake PM accounts. They responded to our complaint saying we need to follow an internal channel to lodge a formal complaint in the matter." He added that a few months ago, emails had been sent individually to each of the six accounts, requesting them to stop impersonating the official account of PM's Office.

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Mr Pachauri said that a communally sensitive tweet had been posted by one of the accounts, presenting the danger that remarks from this and the other accounts could be misconstrued as the opinion of Dr Singh and his team.