550 Twitter accounts suspended in connection with farmers’ protest on R-Day

Twitter has suspended over 550 accounts from its platform in connection with the violence during the farmers’ tractor rally in Delhi on the 72nd Republic Day on Tuesday. A Twitter spokesperson told news agency ANI that the platform has also labelled tweets which were found to be in violation of its “synthetic and manipulated media policy.”

“We are monitoring the situation closely and remain vigilant, and strongly encourage those on the service to report anything they believe is in violation of the rules,” the Twitter spokesperson said. Farmers broke through barricades to enter Delhi and resorted to vandalism across several parts of the national capital during their Kisan tractor rally against the Centre’s three new farm laws on January 26. Several public and private properties were damaged in the violence. Various cases have been registered regarding the violence, in which over 300 police personnel were injured. Delhi Police has detained 200 people in connection with the violence.

Farmers have been protesting on the different borders of the national capital since November 26 last year against the three newly enacted farm laws – Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; the Farmers Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and farm Services Act 2020 and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.