Twitter resolves geotag issue after showing J&K as part of China

"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 spokesperson said.

New Delhi: After courting controversy for wrongly showing Jammu and Kashmir as part of China, Twitter on Monday said it has resolved the issue.

“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 spokesperson told i in a statement.

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The issue was first brought to attention by national security analyst Nitin Gokhale after he went live on Twitter from Hall of Fame, a war memorial at Leh.

Gokhale went live on Twitter to tell people about his experience of reaching Ladakh from Himachal Pradesh through a new route. After completing the programme, he discovered that the location of the war memorial at Leh was shown as “Jammu and Kashmir, People’s Republic of China.”

“Twitter folks, I just did a live from Hall of Fame. Giving Hall of Fame as the location and guess what it is saying Jammu & Kashmir, Peoples Republic of China! Are you guys nuts?” Gokhale said in a tweet.

The matter was later also raised Kanchan Gupta, Distinguished Fellow, Observer Research Foundation (ORF) after tweets showed J&K as a part of China.

“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?” Gupta wrote tagging Telecom and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

Several netizens also asked Prasad and the government to take action against Twitter India.

The controversy erupted amid India’s border standoff with China in Ladakh.