New Delhi:
Twitter has told the government that it needs more time to block 28 accounts, which have allegedly tweeted communally sensitive or inflammatory remarks and photos.
The micro-blogging site has written to the Department of Information and Technology to state that it's having technical difficulties in disabling these accounts.
The Ministry of Home Affairs has warned of serious consequences if its orders are not followed. Twitter has around 16 million accounts in India.
Earlier this month, doctored photos and videos were circulated to falsely depict atrocities against Muslims in Myanmar and Assam. Images of people who died in natural disasters like earthquakes were represented as victims of ethnic violence. The campaign urged reprisal. Text messages sent to migrants from the North East in cities like Bangalore and Pune saw thousands of people boarding special trains to their homes and families.
Twitter has also been asked to block six accounts that masquerade as the official account of the Prime Minister's Office.
"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," the prime minister's communications adviser, Pankaj Pachauri, told IANS.
"We have forwarded their communication to the ministry of communications and IT for necessary action," Mr Pachauri said. "We had earlier complained through email to the six fake twitter accounts individually," he added.
In January this year, Twitter had announced its ability to block content in a country but making it available in other parts of the world. It had also stressed that "if and when we are required to withhold a tweet in a specific country, we will attempt to let the user know, and we will clearly mark when the content has been withheld."
Internet giants like Facebook and Google have been fighting criminal and civil charges in Delhi courts where they have been accused of allowing content that provokes communal hatred. The government has said that often, social networking sites are too slow to respond to requests asking for offensive material to be deleted.
(With inputs from Agencies)