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    Union Minister for Law & Justice, Communications, Electronics & Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Friday said Twitter denied him access to his account for almost an hour over complaints that he violated copyright law by posting clips of himself from television debates. He tweeted that Twitter’s actions were in gross violation of Rule 4(8) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 where they failed to provide me any prior notice before denying me access to my own account. "Twitter denied access to my account for almost an hour on the alleged ground that there was a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of the USA and subsequently they allowed me to access the account," Mr Prasad said in a series of tweets.

Twitter’s actions were in gross violation of Rule 4(8) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 where they failed to provide me any prior notice before denying me access to my own account.

— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) June 25, 2021

No matter what any platform does they will have to abide by the new IT Rules fully and there shall be no compromise on that.

— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) June 25, 2021

The issue is not between Twitter and the Government of India, it is also not the issue between Twitter and BJP. It is the issue between Twitter and the Indian users of Twitter who must be given a forum incase of abuse and misuse. pic.twitter.com/qVf98biVzO

— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) June 24, 2021

Congress leader and MP from Thiruvanathapuram Mr Shashi Tharoor on Friday said he too was briefly locked out of his Twitter account after he posted an explainer on why Union Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad was blocked from posting from his handle.

Earlier in the day, Mr Tharoor posted a series of tweets saying that it was because of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act or DMCA which governs most US-based web platforms that the minister was blocked from access his Twitter account and perhaps not vendetta as Mr Prasad had alleged.

Indians creatively make videos using short snippets of foreign music. Most people would consider that "fair use". Instead of letting the clip enhance the popularity of their sing, the copyright holders have issued notice. Though i just RTd it, I'm not about to contest their act.

— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) June 25, 2021

So I won't blame @Twitter for this action or attribute the motives to them that @rsprasad does, though it wasn't pleasant finding my account locked. Clearly they had no choice but to honour a DMCA takedown notice, however stupid & pointless the request was.

— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) June 25, 2021