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Indian government threatens to punish Twitter workers with fines of up to seven years and prison sentences recovering hundreds of accounts ordered the company to block. Most of the accounts were critical of the country’s prime minister Narendra Modi.
On Monday, Twitter complied with the government’s order and prevented people in India from viewing more than 250 accounts of activists, political commentators, a movie star and the Caravan investigative news magazine. Most of the accounts criticized Modi, the Hindu nationalist prime minister of India and his government. But the company reinstated the accounts about six hours later after a Twitter lawyer met with IT ministry officials, arguing that the tweets and accounts were free expression and were to be renewed.
The Indian government disagreed. On Tuesday, the IT ministry sent a note to Twitter, again ordering it to block the accounts. He also threatened people working on the Indian arm of Twitter with legal consequences, who could face a fine and up to seven years in prison.
“This is really problematic,” said Nikhil Pahwa, editor of MediaNama, technology policy website, and Internet activist. “I don’t see why the Indian government should go into this territory when they have much bigger problems trying to censor tweets.”
A Twitter spokesperson declined to comment. A spokesman for the IT ministry did not respond to the request for comment.
The move puts the company in a tough situation. Re-blocking the accounts would mean accusing India of playing an active role in the ongoing crackdown on dissent, while anti-government protests are upsetting the nation. But leaving the accounts on the platform means jeopardizing political and legal exposure in a major market.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the government said the accounts were “spreading misinformation about the protests” and had “the power to provoke immediate violence affecting the state of public order in the country.” BuzzFeed News has reviewed a copy of the release.
Thousands of Indian farmers, who have been harming their incomes for months, have crossed police barricades and stormed a Jan. 26 Mughal-era fort in New Delhi in protest of agrarian reform. , Day of the Republic of India. At least one protester said he died. Delhi police denied their involvement in the incident.
In the statement, the government claimed that the accounts used a hashtag that “encouraged people to commit heinous crimes related to public order and security in the state.”
Although the caravan did not use the hashtag, the government claimed that “news and press accounts” were spreading misinformation, causing “instigation of the people” and creating a “state of public order”.
A caravan spokesman told BuzzFeed News that his journalism was straightforward and professional. “We don’t understand why all of a sudden the Indian government doesn’t have to talk to journalists on all sides of an issue,” the magazine’s executive director, Vinod K. Jose, told BuzzFeed News.
Indian law prohibits Twitter from sharing the legal order it received on Monday, but the government warned on Tuesday that the company had fought back. The document says Twitter did not block the accounts until 24 hours after receiving the first order, and a Twitter lawyer did so a few minutes before meeting with government officials on Tuesday.
“It is clear that the tweets / hashtags of the offenses are in the public domain and must be tweeted and retweeted several times with the risk and cost of public order and the risk of inciting the offenders,” the note says.
According to the report, Twitter also sent a response to the government after meeting with officials who refused to “comply and comply” with the government’s order. Under Indian law, the release says Twitter will have to comply.
The government also backed down on Twitter’s “free speech” argument, saying the company had no “constitution, legal or any legal basis” to interpret what was free speech under Indian law.
Twitter argued that there was “insufficient justification” to block the entire account and said the government should order it to block individual tweets. In the face of this, the government’s note said there was no place on Twitter to seek justifications from the government.
Underlying the legal system is Article 69A, Article of IT Laws of India. The federal government has asked platforms like Twitter to “retain any information generated, transmitted, received, stored or hosted” on any computer resource.
“I hope this case goes to court,” Pahwa, founder of MediaNama, said, “because I think the government is rationally losing the case.”
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