Over 45K Indian accounts are banned on the microblogging site Twitter

Digital Desk: Twitter, which is embroiled in a court dispute with the Indian government over content banning orders, banned 45,191 Indian accounts in July for violating its restrictions, according to the microblogging platform's monthly compliance report released on Friday.

Twitter terminated 42,825 accounts in India for encouraging child sexual exploitation, non-consensual nudity, and related content while barring another 2,366 accounts for promoting terrorism, according to its monthly compliance report under the new IT Rules, 2021.

Between June 26 and July 25, the microblogging platform received 874 grievances in the country via its local grievance process and addressed 70 of them.

"While we encourage everyone to express themselves on our platform, we do not accept harassment, threats, dehumanization, or the use of fear to silence the voices of others," Twitter stated in the report.

Under the new IT Rules 2021, big digital and social media platforms with more than 5 million users are required to file monthly compliance reports. Twitter receives complaints via its Grievance Officer-India channel about account verification, account access, or requesting assistance or information about an account or Twitter's enforcement activities.

In addition, Twitter handled 124 complaints about account suspensions.

"All of these issues were fixed, and appropriate responses were provided. "After analysing the circumstances of the issue, we overturned none of these account suspensions," said the firm.

The verification report comes after whistleblower Peiter Zatko, Twitter's former head of security, said that the Indian government compelled the platform to "employ a government agent on its payroll" and "provide access to key user data," an allegation that Twitter has denied.

Twitter filed an appeal with the Karnataka High Court in May, challenging the Indian Government's order to remove some information from its site.