Twitter on Monday removed from its website a map showing the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh as separate from India.
The map appeared on the career section of the Twitter website under the header “Tweep Life”.
The government is looking into the matter, an unidentified official told the Hindustan Times.
Earlier on Monday, Bharatiya Janata Party leader P Muralidhar Rao had criticised Twitter’s misrepresentation. “Twitter is confirming by its actions the apprehensions expressed widely in last few months about its bias towards Indian interests and sensitivities,” he said.
The error on Twitter’s website appeared amid a tussle between the company and the Centre on the new information technology rules.
Uttar Pradesh Police have also named Twitter in a first information report for not removing posts about the assault of an elderly Muslim man in Ghaziabad district on June 5. The company has been booked for “intent to a riot, promoting enmity and criminal conspiracy”. The Ghaziabad Police have sent a legal notice to Twitter India Managing Director Manish Maheshwari in the case. However, the Karnataka High Court has barred Uttar Pradesh Police from taking any coercive action against him.
The new information technology rules – which were announced in February and became effective in May – are framed to regulate social media companies, streaming and digital news content, virtually bringing them, for the first time, under the ambit of government supervision.
In May, the government had also criticised Twitter’s decision to label a tweet by Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Sambit Patra as “manipulated media”. Then, On June 5, Twitter had briefly removed the blue check mark from the personal handle of India’s Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu. This blue tick, displayed on a user’s profile, is viewed as an indicator of legitimacy.
Last week, Union Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the social media platform had denied him access to his account for almost an hour, citing a copyright complaint.
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