M A I N   N E W S

Don’t post unverified facts on social sites, govt tells depts
Girja Shankar Kaura/TNS

Twitter Relents Twitter said it would block six fake accounts in the name of the PMO after the government set a deadline for the Microblogging site and other social media websites to remove objectionable content Fresh norms The government said though social media sites were emerging as a powerful platform for forming an opinion, care must be taken to avoid propagation of unverified facts

New Delhi, August 23
Even as the Microblogging site Twitter today agreed to block all fake accounts in the name of the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), the government has issued guidelines for its departments using social media networks asking them not to post confidential information and "unverified" facts.

The government has also increased the SMS limit from five to 20 with immediate effect.

Mobile users were restricted to sending only five SMSes per day from August 18 to check spread of rumours which had fuelled panic among people from the Northeast.

Twitter said it would block the fake accounts after the government set a 12-hour deadline for the Microblogging site and other social media websites to remove objectionable content or face a shutdown in India.

The move from Twitter has come after it did not initially block the objectionable content on six accounts resembling the PMO's official account after earlier agreeing to cooperate with the government. The government then blocked the six accounts after Twitter took no action. The social networking portal has now communicated to the PMO that it would be locating the "unlawful content".

The PMO had also asked the Cyber Security Cell of the Department of IT to block these accounts as these had content having "communal overtones" and could have serious ramifications as these could be mistaken as the official account of the PMO.

The government has also issued guidelines to the official departments using social media networks. In its 38-page guideline book the Information Technology Ministry has said that with 40 million Facebook and 16 million Twitter users in India, social media have emerged as a powerful platform for forming an opinion and generating mass support.