23 August,2012 03:47 PM IST | | Agencies
Social networking site Twitter has agreed to block six fake accounts which were "misrepresenting" Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, officials said today.
Twitter has around 16 million accounts in India.
"Twitter has agreed to block the six fake PM accounts. They responded to our complaint saying we need to follow an internal channel to lodge a formal complaint in the matter," the prime minister's communications adviser Pankaj Pachauri said.
"We have forwarded their communication to the ministry of communications and IT for necessary action," Pachauri said.
"We had earlier complained through email to the six fake twitter accounts individually," he said.
According to Pachauri, a person behind one of the accounts 'PM0India' wrote back saying he had changed the name of his Twitter account to 'thehinduexpress', which proved that some people were up to some mischief on the social networking site.
The official said the fact that the government got just six accounts out of 16 million blocked for misrepresenting the Prime Minister shows New Delhi did not favour a blanket ban on Twitter.
Some of the fake Twitter accounts misrepresenting the Prime Minister included @Indian_pm, @PMOIndiaa, @dryumyumsingh, @PM0India.
Officials said the source of these fake accounts could be outside the country.
Starting a Twitter account for Prime Minister was Pachauri's brainchild after he joined the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) early this year.
Over the past few days, the government has also blocked around 300 web sites which it said was responsible for the exodus of northeasterners from Bangalore and Chennai.
