Twitter says six fake PMO accounts removed

NEW DELHI: The six Twitter accounts, resembling that of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), have been removed after India complained they had objectionable content.

In a communication to the PMO, Twitter has said it has "removed the reported profile(s) from circulation due to violation of our Terms of Service regarding impersonation".

This communication has been sent in response to the complaint made by the PMO with respect to each of the six accounts that these carried content with "communal overtones" and could be mistaken as the official account of the PMO.

"We had requested Twitter to take appropriate action against 6 persons impersonating the Prime Minister's Office. When they did not reply for a long time, we requested Cyber Security Cell to initiate action," a PMO spokesperson said.

The PMO had asked the Cyber Security Cell of the Department of IT to block these accounts.

Subsequently, Twitter had promised to cooperate with the government and locate the "unlawful content".

It told the PMO that it could not take action earlier "because the government entity did not intimate through proper procedure electronically to our system and, hence, the request was not located," sources said.

Twitter said it was "now actively reviewing" the request and will be seeking additional information from the Ministry of Communication and IT "to locate the unlawful content and the specific unlawful tweet."

"India is important to us and we would like to have clearer communication in these matters in future," the communication said, adding that Twitter should be put in touch with appropriate departments in this regard.