By Twocircles.net Staff Reporter,
New Delhi: Over last several days, many accounts from Kashmir or users posting about Kashmir violence where the toll is as much as 32 deaths and thousands injured, had their accounts blocked by the social media giant Facebook.
On Tuesday morning, Kashmir Dispatch found out that their Facebook account became one of the many that have been disabled by Facebook to stop them from posting ground reports from the Valley.
Facebook – where haters & bigots flourish but this post of mine on #kashmir shared by 600+ removed & I blocked. pic.twitter.com/QgvcK0G8P1
— Dibyesh Anand (@dibyeshanand) July 12, 2016
Kashmir Dispatch might be the first organisation to face this, but individuals, both Kashmiri and non-Kashmiris, have been caught off guard by the policies of Facebook.
Eminent academicians like Dibyesh Anand of University of Westminster and Huma Dar of University of Berkeley, both vocal critics of India’s actions in Kashmir, had their account disabled after they posted and shared pictures and their opinions on the social networking channel. In response, Anand took to Twitter to express his anger. “Facebook- where haters & bigots flourish but this post of mine on #Kashmir shared by 600+ removed and I blocked.” he said on Twitter.
Huma Dar also took to Twitter to post screenshots of the “account disabled” prompt that she got, saying that Facebook censors news from “besieged Kashmir” and deletes articles and pictures, besides disabling accounts.
Normally, Facebook deletes objectionable posts that do not meet Facebook’s Community Standards and gives users a chance to explain but the drastic act of disabling accounts seems like censorship of extreme kind in this new media of information exchange.
Mobile internet remains shut in the entire state.