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On Monday, Twitter temporarily barred Indian people from viewing various accounts of entrepreneurs, political commentators, a well-known movie star and major investigative journalism magazines. Caravan, by order of the government of the country. All the accounts had one thing in common: they criticized Indian nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India. Twitter recovered the accounts six hours later, and told government officials that the tweets and accounts were free expression and needed to be renewed.
The move takes place in a crackdown on Indian dissent and calls into question the role that American technology companies play in it. In recent weeks, the Indian authorities have done just that archived sedition cases against famous journalists for reporting on peasant protests for challenging the Modi government. Over the weekend, police in New Delhi, the Indian capital, arrested two journalists, one of whom is still in custody.
Last week, farmers protested calls to “shoot” hourly trend On Twitter, thousands of tweets that encouraged police brutality flooded the platform.
Some of the most notable accounts that Twitter temporarily blocked in the country were those that tweeted updates on farmers ’protests, in addition to the caravan.
“Caravan staff believe Twitter’s decision to retain our official account is the latest in a long list of attacks on the publication for fearlessly searching for important stories,” said Vinod K. Jose, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, and one of the journalists charged with sedition against him last week. he said.
After returning the caravan to Twitter, he tweeted, “Our account has been restored. Today more than ever, it is clear that the real media needs real allies. We would like to thank our readers, subscribers and contributors for their continued support. “
In a statement, Twitter said: “Many countries have laws that apply to Tweets and / or Twitter content. In an effort to make our services available to the public everywhere, if we receive a an application that is properly maintained by an authorized organization, it may be necessary to periodically retain access to certain content in a particular country. Transparency is key to protecting freedom of expression, so we have a warning policy about the content we hold. Upon receipt of requests to retain content, we will immediately notify the affected account holders (unless we are prohibited from doing so, for example if we receive a court order stamped). “
Twitter stores tweets and accounts, even in the United States, according to the company, “if it receives a valid and properly accessible request from an authorized organization.” website. These tweets or accounts can usually be seen in the rest of the world. The company states that it “immediately notifies affected users, unless we are prohibited from doing so,” and that it publishes requests Lumen, A Harvard University project.
But people whose accounts were temporarily blocked in India said Twitter did not inform them before taking action.
“They didn’t contact me before taking action against my account,” Sanjukta Basu told BuzzFeed News in a political comment that saved the account on Twitter.
Jose said Twitter did not inform the magazine before the account was blocked, and that he had only listened to the company for an hour after the block. “Twitter has not revealed where the request for legal removal comes from,” he said.
BuzzFeed News learned that the legal order came from the Indian IT ministry chapter the law mandates the removal of content that the government considers a threat to national security, and prevents companies like Twitter from disclosing information about blocking an account or tweet. The IT ministry declined to make an official statement.
Twitter has confirmed that it has issued orders to the Indian Ministry of Information Technology, but has said it will not upload them to Lumen’s database since the accounts are unlocked.
The company stands between local laws and global human rights standards.
“Internet platforms need to ensure that their actions to comply with government mandates on content removal comply with international standards of human rights law,” said Raman Jit Singh Chima, international adviser and director of Asia Pacific Policy Access Now, a nonprofit Internet advocacy organization. says BuzzFeed News. “Orders that are on board or that media organizations want to prevent the complaint should be challenged.”
This means, even temporarily, carrying out actions that seem unthinkable in other countries – actions that provoked sharp criticism.
“Can you imagine @ twitter following a New York or Atlantic account briefly in a legal letter?” he tweeted Nicholas Dawes, Executive Director of the City and former Director of Human Rights Watch. “It may be difficult to apply human rights-based standards to moderate content globally, but it’s a job they’ve signed.”
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