Parl panel to seek explanation from Twitter on locking of Ravi Shankar, my accounts: Shashi Tharoor
New Delhi, Jun 25: After Twitter briefly blocked IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad from accessing his account for alleged copyrights violation, chairman of the parliamentary panel on information technology Shashi Tharoor on Friday said the same thing happened with him and the standing committee will be seeking an explanation from the social media firm over the temporary locking of their accounts and the rules it follows while operating in India.
Confronting Twitter, Prasad said it was apparent that his statements calling out the high handedness and arbitrary actions of the micro-blogging platform, particularly sharing clips of interviews to TV channels and the powerful impact had "clearly ruffled its feathers".
"Friends! Something highly peculiar happened today. 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," Prasad said in a tweet.
Tagging Prasad's tweet, Tharoor said, "Raviji, the same thing just happened to me. Clearly DMCA is getting hyperactive."
He said one of his tweets has been deleted by Twitter because its video included the copyrighted BoneyM song"Rasputin".
After a process, the account was unlocked, the Congress leader said.
Indians creatively make videos using short snippets of foreign music and most people would consider that "fair use", Tharoor argued in a series of tweets.
Instead of letting the clip enhance the popularity of their song, the copyright holders have issued a notice, the Lok Sabha MP said, adding that though he had just retweeted it, he was not about to contest their act.
In this case the complainant was the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry which is zealously defending the rights of Sony Music to "Rasputin", he said.
Ironically, Tharoor said, at their last conference in India, he was a keynote speaker.
"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," he said in another tweet.
But getting a notice from a UK-based organisation, citing Twitter's role as a service provider under a US law, points to the challenges of Twitter India's operations in India, Tharoor said.
The minister has pointed to possible violations of Indian regulations while conforming to foreign rules, he said.
"As Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, I can state that we will be seeking an explanation from @TwitterIndia for the locking of @rsprasad's & my accounts & the rules & procedures they follow while operating in India," Tharoor said.
A couple of hours after his series of tweets, Tharoor tweeted that Twitter had locked him out again because to explain the problem, the first tweet in his thread of tweets included the offending copyrighted video.
"Locking is a foolish response to a DCMA notice; disabling the video (which they've now done) should be enough. @Twitter has a lot to learn," he said.
Weighing into the issue, Rajya Sabha MP and Shiv Sena leader Priyanka Chaturvedi said this has happened to her verified Facebook page as well with respect to television debates.
"I had also raised this copyright issue in the department related Committee meeting. Unfortunately, it only pinches when it hits home. No conspiracy sir, it is something that has gone unaddressed & is less understood," Chaturvedi said, tagging Prasad's tweet.
"I had in a committee meeting on copyright and Intellectual Property Rights asked this specific question: how can a TV channel flag a segment as copyright violation for a debate in which I was a part & is shared on my page? The page was allowed access only when post was taken down," she tweeted.
However, there was no answer then and not even taken up as a larger issue that needs clarity, she said in her series of tweets on the issue.
"Today it happened to the IT Minister and he blames the platform! The issue is not you, your position or the platform, it is the lack of clarity. But then we live in the times of narrative setting," Chaturvedi said.
The temporary locking of the IT Minister's Twitter account comes at a time when the US-based digital giant has been engaged in a tussle with the Indian government over the new social media rules.
The government has slammed Twitter for deliberate defiance and failure to comply with the country's new IT rules, which has led to the microblogging platform losing its legal shield as an intermediary in India and becoming liable for users posting any unlawful content.
Lashing out at Twitter, Prasad -- in a series of posts on rival social media platform Koo -- said it was apparent that his statements calling out the "high handedness and arbitrary actions" of Twitter had ruffled feathers. He also tweeted on the issue.
Friends! Something highly peculiar happened today. 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. pic.twitter.com/WspPmor9Su
— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) June 25, 2021
Raviji, the same thing just happened to me. Clearly DMCA is getting hyperactive. This tweet has been deleted by @Twitter because its video includes the copyrighted BoneyM song"Rasputin": https://t.co/ClgP2OKV1o #DanceIsNotJihad pic.twitter.com/IqQD50WhaU
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) June 25, 2021
After process, a/c unlocked. https://t.co/TCeT8aGxV6
As Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, I can state that we will be seeking an explanation from @TwitterIndia for the locking of @rsprasad's & my accounts & the rules & procedures they follow while operating in India.
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) June 25, 2021
And @Twitter locked me out again because to explain the problem, the first tweet in this thread included the offending copyrighted video. Locking is a foolish response to a DCMA notice; disabling the video (which they've now done) should be enough. @Twitter has a lot to learn.
— Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) June 25, 2021
It has happened to my verified Facebook page wrt tv debates. I had also raised this copyright issue in the department related Committee meeting. Unfortunately, it only pinches when it hits home. No conspiracy sir, it is something that has gone unaddressed & is less understood. https://t.co/VA91zoXAqQ
— Priyanka Chaturvedi🇮🇳 (@priyankac19) June 25, 2021
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
"It's a shock", says ex-ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair on GSLV launch setback
Bengaluru, Aug 12: Veteran space scientist G Madhavan Nair expressed shock over the unsuccessful GSLV-F10 launch mission but said the ISRO is resilient enough to bounce back.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched GSLV-F10 rocket, with an earth observation satellite (EOS-03) on board, on Thursday at 0543 hours as scheduled, from Sriharikota spaceport.
"Performance of first and second stages was normal. However, Cryogenic Upper Stage ignition did not happen due to technical anomaly. The mission couldn't be accomplished as intended", the space agency tweeted.
Nair, during whose tenure of six years from 2003 as ISRO Chairman 25 successful missions were accomplished, indicated that setbacks of this kind is not unusual and said ISRO should not lose heart.
"This is a very complex mission. Normally, the Cryogenic stage is the most difficult one compared to all other rocket propulsions", Nair told PTI.
ISRO, he said, had mastered the cryogenic technology over the years and its track record on this count is not that bad compared to European countries and Russia where failure of cryogenic stage was in the range of about 20 per cent.
"This is the eighth launch of cryogenic stage. The first one was a problem (unsuccessful). Subsequently, all other launches turned in text-book performance. There is a finite possibility of failure with any such complex system. We need not be disappointed. But at the same time, we should go to the root cause (of the failure) and fix it so that we don't repeat", Nair said.
And he added: "It's a shock for all of us. But we will recover from this shock soon and we will be back on track. The ISRO community is resilient enough to face such difficulties".
EOS-03 was a state-of-the-art agile earth observation satellite which was to be placed in a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit by GSLV-F10. Subsequently, the satellite was to reach the final geostationary orbit using its onboard propulsion system.
The objectives of EOS-03 were to provide near real time imaging of large area region of interest at frequent intervals; for quick monitoring of natural disasters, episodic events and any short term events; and to obtain spectral signatures for agriculture, forestry, water bodies as well as for disaster warning, cyclone monitoring, and cloud burst / thunderstorm monitoring, among others.
