Twitter location tag in a live broadcast pins Jammu and Kashmir as a part of China

NEW DELHI: Twitter landed in a controversy on Sunday after the location tag in a live broadcast showed Jammu and Kashmir as a part of China.

The microblogging site’s lapse was brought to attention by national security analyst, Nitin Gokhale, who went live from Leh’s popular war memorial, Hall of Fame, around 12pm. TOI reached out to Twitter for a comment over phone and email, but did not get a response till the filing of this report.

“Twitter folks, I just did a live (sic) from Hall of Fame. Giving Hall of Fame as the location and guess what it is saying Jammu & Kashmir, People’s Republic of China! Are you guys nuts?” Gokhale wrote on his verified handle.


According to lehladakhindia.com, “Hall of Fame is a museum constructed by the Indian Army in memory of the brave Indian soldiers who laid down their lives defending the motherland in the Indo-Pak wars. The Hall of Fame museum is located on the Leh-Kargil Road, about 4km from the city of Leh.”

Following Gokhale’s tweets, other users also tried to go live on the microblogging platform by tagging their location as Leh, and Twitter showed it to be a part of China’s territory.

“So @Twitter has decided to reconfigure geography and declare Jammu & Kashmir as part of People’s Republic of #China. If this is not a violation of #India laws, what is? Citizens of India have been punished for far less. But US Big Tech is above the law?” asked Kanchan Gupta of Observer Research Foundation while tagging IT minister @rsprasad. Other users demanded action against Twitter for “disrespecting” the Indian map.