In a crackdown against miscreants spreading misinformation on COVID-19 on social media, the Punjab police on Thursday approached the Centre for blocking access to 45 links indulging in false propaganda after the platforms failed to act against them within the mandated 36 hours of notices being issued by the State.
DGP Dinkar Gupta said with 13 more accounts-links blocked by the various platforms, the number of URL-links blocked has gone up to 121, while the Central intervention has been sought in 45.
“Facebook has blocked 47, Twitter has blocked 52, YouTube 21 and Instagram 1 accounts. In addition, 292 such URLs-links carrying malicious content have been reported to social media platforms for blocking the same,” said the DGP.
On the 45 accounts-links, the DGP said a letter has been sent to the cyber law division of the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology requesting blocking of access to the said YouTube channels-accounts.
The letter has listed them in detail, in the interest of the sovereignty and integrity of India, public order, and for preventing incitement to the commission to any cognizable offence.
Punjab recorded 2,464 cases on Thursday and reported 88 more deaths taking the tally to 2,149, according to an official statement.
The number of positive cases has reached 72,143. The major chunk of the new cases, 307 and 295, were reported from S.A.S. Nagar and Amritsar districts respectively. The Health department said the active cases are 18,088 and 51,906 patients have so far been cured.
