More than 300 handles have been suspended for tweeting in support of Kashmiris after August 5th, the day New Delhi stripped the occupied territory of its semi-autonomous status. Several other Twitter handles, including those of journalists and other news channels, have issued warnings detailing abuses of rights in the occupied territory. In that torturous suspension phase, many top influencers lost their large chunk of followers and almost lost their accounts. Lately, Pakistan has reached an agreement with Twitter authorities and the website for social networking will no longer suspend or terminate one-sided accounts authorized by the Pakistan’s government. Since Twitter is not a registered company in Pakistan, but a private listed company in India so, the arrangement is not formal but oral. A micro-blogging website commented that “We do not comply with any Pakistani laws and do not comply with any Pakistani rules or demands”. Shah said on Tuesday, after a conference call with the company’s policy officials in Dubai, the UAE, a’ cadence’ was created. In the meantime, Shah reported that all suspended accounts–at least 200 of them from government officials–whose names were shared with Twitter by the government had been restored. The NITB chief clarified that on the basis of an algorithm, the micro-blogging site decided to suspend accounts; however, decisions were also often taken at one’s discretion. Since there is very powerful Indian lobbying, we believe many of our accounts have been suspended on the Indian lobby’s whims, “he added. “We told them now not to delete these accounts without keeping us in the loop”. Pakistan had contacted Twitter at least twice in the last two months and expressed concern about the suspension of accounts for posts related to the ongoing military attack in Indian Occupied Kashmir.
