Twitter says it will not block journalists, activists and politicians from supporting free expression in India

Twitter has told the Indian government that it will not limit the accounts of Indian journalists, activists and politicians, despite receiving orders from the country’s federal government. However, a certain number of accounts that do not fall into these categories are being blocked from being viewed from within the country.

In one blog post published on Tuesday, the company said that although the Indian government had retained some accounts that it wanted to block, it would not block others because doing so would violate freedom of expression.

“Because we have not signed the actions we need to take to comply with Indian law and, in line with our principles of protecting protected speech and freedom of expression, we have not taken action on new media accounts. Entities, journalists, activists and politicians,” the Twitter blog post said. “Doing so would, in our view, violate the fundamental right to freedom of expression under Indian law.”

Twitter’s post comes amid a struggle with the Indian government, the company’s main market, to limit the accounts of the platform. Earlier this month, the company limited People in India see more than 250 accounts in the country after receiving a legal emergency order from the IT Ministry of India. Among the blocked accounts was the Caravan investigative news magazine; Criticism of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi; and accounts of tweets in support of the country’s monthly peasant protest.

But Twitter restored the accounts six hours later, arguing with the Indian government that the accounts were free expression and noteworthy. In the face of this, the government threatened Twitter officials received a fine and a seven-year prison sentence for violating the order.

Tightness in the face of the Indian government has put Twitter on hold hard place. Blocking accounts means allowing the increasingly authoritarian government in India to crack down on dissent, freedom of expression and journalism. But challenging the government means jeopardizing its legal consequences.

In blog post published on Tuesday, Twitter said it had taken additional steps, such as banning hashtags containing harmful content from the platform, something the government feared would lead to real violence in the midst of the protest, breaking more than 500 accounts permanently for breaking Twitter rules.

But message It also indicates that Twitter is looking for a legal solution to restore some of its limited accounts in the country.

“We will continue to claim the right to freedom of expression on behalf of the people we serve and we are actively exploring options under Indian law, both for Twitter and for issues that have had an impact,” Twitter wrote. “We remain committed to taking care of the health of the ongoing conversation on Twitter, and we believe the tweets should go.”