Srinagar: Facebook and Instagram have blocked handles of the Indian Army’s Chinar Corps, which is located in the Kashmir Valley. Chinar Corps had created the social media handles to counter the misinformation and lies flowing from across the border. The Indian Army unit, which is a strategically located formation in Kashmir, also educated the locals about Army’s social welfare initiatives on the platforms.
It is over a week but Facebook and Instagram have not responded to the official communication in regards to the blocking of the accounts.
“A link you followed may be broken, or the page may have been removed,” read the messages on both Facebook and Instagram pages of the Chinar Corps.
Chinar Corps, the Army’s strategic unit, guards the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir.
In 2021, the Indian government notified Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021, that called for large social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp to follow additional due diligence. The order also called for the intermediaries to establish a grievance redressal mechanism for receiving resolving complaints from the users or victims. The Intermediaries should appoint a Grievance Officer to deal with such complaints and share the name and contact details of such officer. Grievance Officer shall acknowledge the complaint within 24 hours and resolve it within fifteen days from its receipt, the order read.
Facebook had initially raised some objections but later agreed to implement to comply with the provisions of the IT rules.
According to a government release on February 25, 2021, there were 53 crores WhatsApp
users in India at that point of time, 44.8 crore YouTube users, 41 crore Facebook users, 21 crore people were subscribed to Instagram and Twitter was being used by 1.75 crores.
