Twitter faces public fury after it blocks Amul's account

Netizens bash Twitter after it briefly blocked home grown dairy giant Amul' s micro blogging account

Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) - which makes Amul brand of food products - found its Twitter account blocked on June 4 evening. The account was restored on June 5.

Twitteraties have attributed that Twitter blocked Amul' s account after the company supported boycott China products campaign through number of cartoons, however, Twitter said that the account was restricted due to security reason.

"Our Twitter account was blocked on the night of June 4 and restored on June 5 morning when we took up process of reactivation with Twitter. We have asked Twitter why it blocked our account. We are waiting for the reply," Amul Managing Director R S Sodhi said.

However a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement that "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. These challenges are simple 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, the statement added. "To protect the accounts, we routinely require them to clear this security key for login verification," the spokesperson said.

However, public expressed their outrage against Twitter for blocking the dairy giant's official account. The brand figured among trending topics in India even on Saturday with over 11,500 tweets.

In the campaign, Amul's iconic girl in white and red polka dots dress is seen fighting a dragon that is carrying a 'Made in China' placard. The picture mentions TikTok (a Chinese short video platform).

The creative carries a tagline 'Amul Made In India' referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call for self-reliant India.

Amul always produces creative cartoons on national and international developments.

"As far as the cartoon is concerned, it is not Amul's comment. Amul butter girl comments on mood of the nation and the topics which are in discussions among the common people," Sodhi said.