Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Major General Asif Ghafoor on Sunday revealed that Islamabad has taken up a case with Twitter and Facebook for suspending Pakistani social media accounts that posted messages in support of Kashmir.
“Pakistan authorities have taken up the case with Twitter and Facebook against suspending Pakistani accounts for posting in support of Kashmir,” DG ISPR posted on his personal Twitter account, adding that the reason behind the suspended accounts is the Indian staff at the regional headquarters of the social media giants. He also requested social media users to respond with information about accounts that have been suspended.
Maj Gen Ghafoor’s statement came as #StopSuspendingPakistanis was trending on Twitter in Pakistan. Over the last one week, multiple Pakistanis have taken to Twitter to report that accounts were being suspended after they posted about Kashmir.
Earlier this week, a Pakistani journalist’s Twitter account was suspended after he responded to a tweet from Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. According to the publication the journalist is associated with, Indian government officials have admitted, on social media, to putting pressure on Twitter to suspend accounts tweeting in favour of Kashmir and against the Indian occupation regime. Facebook has the greatest number of fact checking partners in India, followed by the United States, according to the Poynter Institute. The numbers, Poynter said, are a reflection of where the majority of Facebook’s users are situated. There are 250 million Facebook users in India.
