Twitter subjected many to shock on Saturday by suddenly suspending the official handles of a few media houses, organizations and entities. From India, the popular news agency Asian News International (ANI) lost its account. The English-language handle of NDTV also went missing. The two entities commanded a Twitter following of more than 15 million between them.
The reason is that Twitter wants to retain only those accounts belonging to individuals 13 or older. Twitter has notified several entities this much: “In order to create a Twitter account, you must be at least 13 years old: Twitter has determined that you don't meet these age requirements, so your account has been locked and will be removed from Twitter".
"Twitter has locked out India’s largest news agency which has 7.6 million followers and sent this mail - under 13 years of age! Our gold tick was taken away, substituted with blue tick and now locked out," wrote Smita Prakash of ANI, lamenting the shocker.
Twitter has been arbitrary of late. ANI, NDTV and others will get their accounts back eventually. It has to be seen if the old posts will remain or not.
