Twitter has locked the account of Asian News International (ANI) for not meeting the minimum age criteria to operate the micro-blogging platform, ANI Editor Smita Prakash informed on Saturday. The Twitter handle of the news agency shows the message ‘This account doesn’t exist’.

Prakash shared the screenshot of a mail sent from Twitter informing that ANI's handle has been locked.

The mail reads, “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.”

Minutes after ANI's Twitter account disappeared, Smita Prakash tweeted, “So those who follow @ANI bad news, @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.”

South Asia's leading multimedia news agency has over 100 bureaus in India, South Asia and across the globe, according to its website.

After news agency ANI's Twitter handle, NDTV's Twitter account was locked by Twitter. While ANI’s account was locked since the owner did not fulfil the ‘minimum age requirement’ , NDTV's Twitter account has been blocked for unknown reasons. 

NDTV is yet to release a statement on the reason behind the action by the social media company.

Several issues related to Twitter have been reported by users since Elon Musk took over the social media company and slashed staff, raising concerns about the viability of the service with fewer engineers.

South Asia's leading multimedia news agency, ANI, has over 100 bureaus in India, South Asia and across the globe, according to its website.