Twitter India had to issue a clarification on Monday after the micro-blogging site showed one of the two capital cities of the Indian territory of Ladakh as part of China. The company said it was a technical issue and they were working to resolve it.
“We became aware of this technical issue on Sunday, and understand and respect the sensitivities around it. The teams have worked swiftly to investigate and resolve the concerned geotag issue,” a Twitter India spokesperson said.
The issue was flagged on 18 October, when National Security Analyst Nitin Gokhale, who was live on Twitter from Leh airport, noticed that his location was showing 'Jammu and Kashmir, People's Republic of China' instead of Ladakh.
In August 2019, the erstwhile quasi-autonomous Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir was split into two Union Territories: Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh. Leh is one of Ladakh's two joint capital cities, and is its largest city.
Gokhle called Twitter's mislabelling an unpardonable development. He also added that the matter has been made known to the Government of India.
So @Twitter has decided to reconfigure geography and declare Jammu & Kashmir as part of People's Republic of #China . If this is not a violation of #India laws, what is? Citizens of India have been punished for far less. But US Big Tech is above the law? @nitingokhale @rsprasad pic.twitter.com/euelMvCxTy
— Kanchan Gupta (@KanchanGupta) October 18, 2020
— Nitin A. Gokhale (@nitingokhale) October 18, 2020
This was followed by vehement trolling of Twitter on the microblogging site as several netizens called out the social media platform for deliberately siding with China.
Earlier, Twitter India was bashed for briefly blocking dairy company Amul's Twitter handle after it showed advertising backing the purchase of 'Make in India products' and a boycott on Chinese products. The company posted ‘Exit the Dragon’ tweet on 3 June in the afternoon and its account was taken down the next day.
#Amul Topical: About the boycott of Chinese products... pic.twitter.com/ZITa0tOb1h
— Amul.coop (@Amul_Coop) June 3, 2020
Just don't keep sitting on it... Arrest indian management of @TwitterIndia and ban it. All chinese spy businesses are supposed to be purged from India in this hour of crisis especially.
— Ashutosh Rai (@AshutoshRaiK) October 18, 2020
The Indian and Chinese armies have been locked in their longest-ever border face-off at different sectors of the Ladakh region since the last week of April. But the situation escalated when Indian and Chinese soldiers got engaged in a violent clash on the night of 15-16 June. The incident evoked massive outrage in India. Since then, several rounds of diplomatic, military, and political-level talks have been held between the two sides to defuse the already-tense situation and bring normalcy.
