Twitter bans over 44K accounts for policy violations in India

Twitter banned 44,611 accounts promoting child sexual exploitation and non-consensual nudity in India between September 26 and October 25, as Elon Musk took over.

In the earlier period between August 26 and September 25, the company had banned 52,141 such bad accounts in India.

The micro-blogging platform, going through a churning under Musk, also took down 4,014 accounts for promoting terrorism on its platform in the country.

Twitter, in its monthly report in compliance with the new IT Rules, 2021, said that it received 582 complaints from users in India in the same time frame through its grievance redressal mechanisms, and took action on just 20 of those URLS.

It is in stark difference from the earlier period (August 26 and September 25) when Twitter received 157 complaints from users in India and took action on 129 of those URLS.

In its new report, Twitter said that it processed 61 grievances which were appealing Twitter account suspensions. "These were all resolved and the appropriate responses were sent," said Twitter.

"We overturned none of these account suspensions after reviewing the specifics of the situation. All accounts remain suspended. We also received 12 requests related to general questions about Twitter accounts during this reporting period," said the company.

In October, Delhi Commission for Women chairperson Swati Maliwal had said the replies received from Twitter in the child pornography complaints were incomplete and the Commission was not satisfied with them.

Musk has already expressed grave concerns over reports about the presence of tweets soliciting child pornography on Twitter.

Under the new IT Rules 2021, big digital and social media platforms, with more than 5 million users, have to publish monthly compliance reports.