I am responsible, Digvijaya Singh tells Twitter after some posts blocked

Congress senior leader and Rajya Sabha MP Digvijaya Singh on Thursday complained that popular micro blogging site Twitter has been blocking his tweets saying it “includes potentially sensitive content”. The Congress leader said his tweets were being blocked by the social media giant without specifying what was “potentially sensitive” in his tweets. He has demanded a response from the country head of the company.

“Twitter has been blocking my tweets saying it “includes potentially sensitive content” such as these without telling me what is “potentially sensitive content” in my tweets? I need to have the response of Twitter Country Head of India,” Digvijaya tweeted on Thursday.

Digvijaya Singh added that classifying criticism of Central government leaders as “sensitive content” was an act of political bias.

“If saying something against Narendra Modi or Amit Shah you find to be of “sensitive content” then you are being politically biased against me which you have no right to be. I have earlier complained to your Management of your biased attitude against me but without any response,” Digvijaya said in another of his tweets on the matter.

In his defence, he said he was a “responsible” Indian citizen with an extensive record of public service.

“I am a responsible Indian Citizen who has been elected to MP Assembly 5 times Lok Sabha twice and Rajya Sabha twice. I have been Minister in MP and CM MP for 10 years. Why should I post any objectionable tweet?” Digivjaya asked.

Twitter was recently questioned by the Supreme Court of India over alleged defamatory tweets by senior lawyer and activist Prashant Bhushan. Twitter’s counsel told the SC that the site can only disable a tweet on orders passed by the Court.

According to the rule of contempt, for a publication including web/social media platform, the author and the publisher, both are called out in the matter.

Social media have been under an increasing scrutiny for libellous content posted by users. The micro blogging site has a media policy that filters and bars graphic violence, adult content and hateful imagery among others.

According to the company, first time violation of these policies leads to removal of the content and the user getting temporarily locked out of his account while a repeat violation leads to permanent suspension of the account.