Twitter removes Amit Shah’s profile picture citing copyright violation; Restored later

New Delhi, Nov 13: Union Home Minister Amit Shah's display picture on Twitter was removed from by the micro-blogging site on Thursday, in response to a "report from the copyright holder", news agency ANI reported. However, the account has been reinstated the photograph after few hours.

Clicking on his profile picture on his verified handle showed a blank page with the message "Media not displayed. This image has been removed in response to a report from the copyright holder."

Few hours later, a Twitter spokesperson was quoted as saying , "Due to an inadvertent error, we temporarily locked this account under our global copyright policies. This decision was reversed immediately and the account is fully functional."

According to Twitter's copyright policy, "In general, the photographer and NOT the subject of a photograph is the actual rights holder of the resulting photograph."
Notably, the social media giant had recently removed the display picture on the verified handle of BCCI, citing similar concerns.

A similar incident had also happened last week on senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy's Twitter account. For more than a week, Twitter blocked his profile and banner photo of him citing copyright violations.

A report stated that Dr Swamy's lawyers and his secretary Jagdish Shetty contacted Twitter, warning of legal action, following which Twitter restored the photos again on Thursday evening. Twitter explained that they were acting based on a complaint from an unknown person from Bangladesh.