Twitter, ordered by the government to block 1,178 accounts for allegedly spreading misinformation on the farmer protests and provocative content, said today it had withheld a portion of the accounts and within India only. The US social media giant also said it had not taken any action on accounts of media, journalists, activists and politicians as it violated “the right to freedom of expression under Indian law”.
The Twitter blog post that went live on Wednesday morning, added that it was not acting on the “accounts that consist of news media entities, journalists, activists, and politicians” since they “do not believe that the actions we have been directed to take are consistent with Indian law, and, in keeping with our principles of defending protected speech and freedom of expression”.
The post further added that over the course of the last 10 days, “Twitter has been served with several separate blocking orders by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India, under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act”. Two of these were “emergency blocking orders that we temporarily complied with”, though Twitter decided to restore the said accounts “in a manner that we believe was consistent with Indian law”. After this was communicated to MeitY, the post said, Twitter was “served with a non-compliance notice”.
Defending its moves, Twitter said it took steps to reduce the visibility of hashtags containing harmful content, which included prohibiting them from trending on Twitter and appearing as recommended search terms. It also said a range of activities, including permanent suspension, was taken against more than 500 accounts escalated across all government orders.
The stand-off with the Indian government has put Twitter in a tough spot. Blocking the accounts would mean enabling a crackdown against dissent, free speech, and journalism by India’s increasingly authoritarian government. But defying the government means risking legal consequences.
In the blog post published on Tuesday, Twitter said that it had taken additional steps such as banning hashtags containing harmful content from the platform, something that the government feared would provoke real-world violence amid the protest, and permanently suspending more than 500 accounts for violating Twitter’s rules.
“We will continue to advocate for the right of free expression on behalf of the people we serve and are actively exploring options under Indian law — both for Twitter and for the accounts that have been impacted,” Twitter’s post added. “We remain committed to safeguarding the health of the conversation occurring on Twitter, and strongly believe that the Tweets should flow.”
An update on our work to protect the public conversation in recent weeks in India. https://t.co/DNKjCup2j6
— X India (@XCorpIndia) February 10, 2021
