Twitter deactivates Amul account over 'exit the dragon' post, restores later

NEW DELHI: Micro-blogging site Twitter temporarily restricted the official handle of Indian dairy major Amul over its 'exit the dragon' topical, days ahead of the much-anticipated high-level India-China talks to resolve the Ladakh border dispute.

However, Amul’s Twitter account was restored later.

According to reports, Twitter had blocked Amul allegedly for putting out the post against China in which it had written 'Exit the dragon' in an apparent reference to the Chinese military entering Indian territory. 

In the topical, the Amul girl is shown in a confrontation with a dragon, behind which a logo of the Chinese video-sharing mobile application TikTok could also be seen.

#Amul Topical: About the boycott of Chinese products... pic.twitter.com/ZITa0tOb1h — Amul.coop (@Amul_Coop) June 3, 2020

Amul is known for its creatives on global and local topics that made headlines. Amul's latest creative take focuses on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call for "aatmanirbharta (self-reliance)" and the rising anti-Chinese sentiments.

The Indian dairy major, however, issued a statement saying, “Amul's twitter account @amul_coop was temporarily deactivated on the late night of 4th June after our Amul Topical on "Boycott of Chinese Products" with the copy "Exit the Dragon?" 3rd June 2020. This happened without prior intimation to us.’’

“On the morning of 5th June, we complied with the process to reactivate our account and we were live. Our followers were not able to see the above mentioned topical on due to deactivation and they came out in support of Amul and were upset with this behavior of Twitter.”

Amul also informed that it had sought an explanation from Twitter for briefly blocking its account.

“ We have taken up with Twitter to know the reasons of their action. Amul Topical started in 1966 and since then 1st topical has been an observer of events/moments local, national and international. Our Amul Moppet which features in our Amul Topical has reported these various events which have an impact on the live of people,” the company said.

It went on to say that “Amul Topicals are a chronicler of events/moments worldwide from the elections of PMs and Presidents, Brexit, lockdown due to COVID-19, sports events, movies to 1st time airing of Ramayana and Mahabharat in 1987 and 1989 to even events like Emergency in India in 1976.”

The Indian dairy major claimed that its creatives are published without having a biased opinion.

“Amul Topicals function like any news channel/publication and reports the event/moment without having a biased opinion. The said topical is also a remark/question on the events taking place without influencing viewers with any mala fide intentions,” the company said in a statement.

On its part, Twitter said that the action was taken strictly for safety and security of the Amul account, and not related to the content published. 

“Safety and security of the accounts is a key priority for us and to ensure an account has not been compromised sometimes we require the account owner to complete a simple reCAPTCHA process. This is easy for authentic account owners to solve, but difficult (or costly) for spammy or malicious account owners to complete. Once the account clears this security step the account regains full access. To protect the accounts we routinely require them to clear this security key for login verification, the Twitter Spokesperson said while referring to the issue.

The rise in anti-Chinese sentiments gathered steam after yet another face-off between Indian and Chinese forces along the line of actual control in Ladakh apart from the controversy over the origin of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Many believe that the pandemic spiralled out of proportion because China allegedly delayed the release of information on the new disease on purpose.

Educator Sonam Wangchuk -- the man who inspired Aamir Khan's character Rancho in the Bollywood film '3 Idiots' -- had earlier also appealed to all Indian citizens to boycott Chinese goods.