Twitter locks accounts of news agency ANI account, broadcaster NDTV

Twitter on Saturday blocked the social media accounts of news agency ANI and broadcaster NDTV. While ANI's account was suspended over an alleged violation of the age requirement, no reason was given for the suspension of NDTV's Twitter account.

Searches on Twitter for NDTV's English service account @NDTV and the @ANI handle both produced the message "This account doesn't exist. Try searching for another." Their other accounts appeared to be functional.

It was then ANI Editor Smita Prakash informed that the account was locked for not meeting the minimum age criteria to operate the micro-blogging platform.

In a Twitter, Smita Prakash said, “@Twitter has locked out India’s largest news agency which has 7.6 million followers and sent this mail - under 13 years of age! Our gold tick was taken away, substituted with blue tick and now locked out.”

The email which was sent to the ANI read that it needs to be at least 13 years old to run a handle on the micro-blogging platform.

The mail read: “In order to create a Twitter account, you must be at least 13 years old. Twitter has determined that you don't meet these age requirements, so your account has been locked and will be removed from Twitter.”

NDTV's other account @ndtvindia tweeted their main handle had been blocked, tagging Twitter CEO Elon Musk's official handle, asking for the suspended account to be restored.

As per its website, the premier multimedia news agency of South Asia has a presence in more than 100 bureaus located across India, South Asia, and other parts of the world.