Twitter Blocks Canadian-Punjabi Singer Jazzy B's Account Over Tweets on Ongoing Farmers' Protests

Since November 2020, Indian farmers have been protesting three agricultural liberalisation laws that were passed in September 2020. The farmers have remained on the borders of Delhi demanding their revocation. The Indian government has been asking Twitter to remove named accounts hoping to curb fake news concerning the protests from spreading.

Twitter on Tuesday blocked the account of Canadian-Punjabi artist Jazzy B on a request from the Indian government received by the US-based micro-blogging site over the weekend.

— Danish (@DanishKh4n) June 7, 2021

​Jazzy B, or Jaswinder Singh Bains, is a 46-year old singer who has been tweeting in support of the farmers protesting against the farm laws in India. Jazzy B’s tweets were also critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which insists the new laws are “progressive” while refraining from addressing the protesting farmers, NDTV reported.

While Twitter has yet to officially comment on blocking Jazzy B’s account, it did confirm the action on a digital archive platform called Lumen -- that analyses legal complaints and requests for content, ensuring transparency. Along with the singer’s account, three more profiles have been blocked at the government's behest by Twitter over complaints similar to those of Jazzy B.

— Radhika Parashar (@_RadhikaReports) June 8, 2021

​The news about Jazzy B’s account getting blocked by Twitter has garnered responses from netizens supporting the singer.

— Sandeep Singh (@PunYaab) June 7, 2021

— ☬ ТΞΛM huRRRR ☬ (@teamhurrrr) June 8, 2021

— R (@ruby_roniece) June 8, 2021

— Jazzy Matharu (@JazzyMatharu) June 7, 2021

​The singer himself posted a picture on Instagram and captioned it – “I will always stand for the rights of my people,” after getting his Twitter account blocked.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jazzy B (@jazzyb)

Earlier in February also, the Indian government had asked Twitter to block over 500 accounts that it found to have been involved in tweeting triggering posts concerning the farmers' protests.

Threatening legal consequences, the Indian government had told Twitter at the time that misinformation around such a sensitive national matter could have played a vital role in the violence that unfolded between the farmers and security officials in Delhi on 26 January this year.