A BJP Politician Tweeted Vijay's Private Info. Vijay Fans Doxxed Him Back. Twitter Did Nothing.

Twitter has been extremely inconsistent at enforcing doxxing bans. Here's the latest example.

On October 22, H Raja, a BJP politician, posted a picture of South Indian superstar Vijay's election ID card on Twitter.

In response, some Vijay fans posted Raja's address and mobile and fax numbers on Twitter as an act of revenge for posting Vijay's private information.

Both tweets violate Twitter’s rules, which do not allow posting someone’s private information including national ID numbers, addresses, and personal phone numbers.

The fan's tweet exposing Raja’s private information was still up nearly 48 hours later, and since he was still tweeting, Twitter, presumably, did not restrict his account.

Raja’s tweet exposing Vijay’s election ID wasn’t visible on his Twitter timeline, which means that Twitter may have restricted it, but the tweet in question could still be accessed at the time of publication.

Twitter declined to comment on individual accounts. A Twitter spokesperson issued the following statement to BuzzFeed News: "Posting another person’s private and confidential information is a violation of the Twitter Rules."

This is glaring, particularly since Twitter briefly restricted actor Rose McGowan's account recently for including a private phone number in one of her tweets, and made an exception to its policy of not commenting on individual accounts in that case.

We have been in touch with Ms. McGowan's team. We want to explain that her account was temporarily locked because o… https://t.co/jVnVoRsjNJ

Twitter: @TwitterSafety / Via Twitter: @TwitterSafety

On Tuesday morning, this is what Twitter India tweeted:

Important to note: In order to take action on private information, we need to have the person in question report it to us.

Twitter: @TwitterIndia / Via Twitter: @TwitterIndia

However, this policy doesn't exist in Twitter's rules about private information on the platform. Twitter declined to tell BuzzFeed News why this was the case.

Angry Indians called Twitter out for the tweets.

A BuzzFeed News analysis published last week showed that Twitter’s enforcement of doxxing bans has been extremely inconsistent.

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