Ravi Shankar Prasad from Love Twitter to Shove Twitter, a story in two tweets

A day ago IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad slammed Twitter for failing to comply with India’s new IT Rules 2021. His tweets came over 5 years after he had praised Twitter for its stance on freedom of speech. 

Call it a love affair that has ended. Five years ago IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had lauded Twitter for standing up for the freedom of expression and advancing the cause of free speech. In a gushing tweet, complete with emoji of red heart, the IT Minister shared his appreciation for the social media site with hashtag #LoveTwitter. However, his latest tweets go in another direction. Just a day ago on June 16, the minister berated Twitter in strong words, terming the company “over-enthusiastic about its fact-checking mechanism” and failing to comply with India’s new IT Rules 2021. The Minister’s tweets on June 16 are sure to draw attention to one of his tweets made on March 21, 2016. At that time, in his tweet, he said: “Freedom of expression and information sharing has got new strength from social media. Proud of contributions of Twitter to that.#LoveTwitter.” On June 16, IT Minister Prasad launched a scathing attack over its non-compliance with new IT rules. He posted a series of tweets accusing Twitter of being “over-enthusiastic about its fact-checking mechanism” and went on to criticise the company for “portraying itself as the flag bearer of free speech.”