Twitter bans record over 6.8 lakh accounts in India amid major overhaul

NEW DELHI: Struggling to become profitable under Elon Musk as it takes drastic decisions which have infuriated users, Twitter banned a record 682,420 accounts promoting child sexual exploitation and non-consensual nudity in India between January 26 and February 25.

The micro-blogging platform, going through a churning under Musk, also took down 1,548 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 just 73 complaints from users in India in the same time-frame through its grievance redressal mechanisms.

In addition, Twitter processed 27 grievances which were appealing account suspensions.

"We overturned 10 of these account suspensions after reviewing the specifics of the situation. The remaining reported accounts remain suspended," said the company.

"We also received 24 requests related to general questions about Twitter accounts during this reporting period," it added.

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

The report came as Twitter was set to remove all legacy verified Blue check marks from April 1, and the users will have to pay either Rs 900 a month or Rs 9,400 a year to carry the Blue Badge with verification, with some additional benefits like an ability to edit tweets and post longer text/videos.