In response to a court demand in India, Twitter apparently suspended the accounts of Punjabi singer JazzyB, hip-hop artist L-Fresh the Lion, and two others.
According to the Lumen database, Twitter received a legal request from the Indian government on June 6 for the suspension of four accounts, including JazzyB’s. Requests for content withholding received by Twitter are published in the Lumen database, an independent research initiative that studies cease and desist letters pertaining to online content.
For more than six months, the four Twitter users – whose accounts and posts are still visible outside the country – have expressed sympathy for Indian farmers organising protests on New Delhi’s borders.
Twitter and Facebook Inc. are engaged in increasing dispute with Modi’s administration. Tensions rose last month when police officials visited Twitter’s New Delhi headquarters to issue a warning about tweets by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, a move branded by the American corporation as “intimidation tactics.” The company was then accused of attempting to “dictate terms to the world’s greatest democracy” and “defame India,” according to a federal minister.
According to the company’s transparency report issued earlier this year, the south Asian nation sends the second-highest amount of Twitter ban requests, accounting for one-fourth of all global accounts mentioned. The United States is #1.
India has passed new rules that might require social media and messaging providers to break encryption in order to identify the sender of a message. WhatsApp has filed a legal challenge to the guidelines, claiming that they restrict free expression and violate privacy. The administration claims that the new rules would aid in the battle against fake news and hate speech.
