NEW DELHI – Twitter on Thursday opposed India’s increasingly persistent efforts to control online language, urged the government to respect freedom of expression and criticized the country’s police force “intimidating” tactics.
The statement comes as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Indian government faces mounting pressure to deal with a devastating second wave of the coronavirus. Many of these complaints have been broadcast on Twitter and elsewhere online.
The government has tried hard to get the narrative back. On Thursday, Twitter said it had received a notice of non-compliance with Indian information technology laws. The notice asked the company to remove content critical of the government’s handling of the coronavirus and farmers’ protests, including some published by journalists, activists and politicians.
Under Indian law, Twitter executives in India could face up to seven years’ imprisonment if the company fails to follow government instructions to remove content it deems subversive or a threat to public order and national security adheres to.
In its statement, the San Francisco-based social media service said it plans to persuade India’s leaders to change new regulations that give authorities more leverage over online platforms.
“At the moment we are concerned about recent events regarding our workforce in India and the potential threat to freedom of expression for the people we serve,” the statement said.
Citing the new information technology regulations, he added, “We have concerns, along with many in civil society in India and around the world, about the police’s use of intimidation tactics in response to enforcement of our global terms of use, as well as core elements of the new IT rules. “
Twitter’s statement came just days after officers from an elite counter-terrorism police force visited the company’s New Delhi offices. They protested the way the company had labeled posts by high-ranking officials from India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
These officials had posted documents on Twitter that provided evidence that opposition politicians were planning to use the country’s coronavirus crisis as a political stick. Twitter described them as “manipulated media” in response to allegations that the documents were forged.
Even before the coronavirus hit, Mr Modi’s government and the BJP had taken ever stronger steps to contain disagreements in the 1.4 billion country.
In February, Twitter blocked over 500 accounts and removed an unspecified number of other accounts in India after the government accused those accounts of making inflammatory remarks about Mr Modi in connection with protests by angry farmers. Farmers have been camping outside of New Delhi for at least six months to protest the farming laws.
Twitter previously said it would not take action against accounts owned by media organizations, journalists, activists or politicians, and it did not believe the order to block those accounts was “in accordance with Indian law.”
However, on Thursday the company admitted that it had withheld some unverified accounts in these categories from India despite believing the content was “legitimate free speech” under Indian and international law. The company announced last week that it was reopening its review process to allow government officials, media organizations, journalists and activists to apply for a blue tick, a token of credibility online, a process that has been on hold since 2017.
In April, Mr Modi’s government ordered Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to remove dozens of social media posts that were critical of how the pandemic was being handled. The order was addressed to around 100 opposition politicians and included calls for Mr. Modi to step down.
Under the new Internet rules in India, social media companies are required to appoint India-based executives who may be criminally liable for violations and create systems to track and identify the “first author” of posts or messages sent by as The government is classified as “offensive”.
The rules apply to a wide variety of media, including digital news agencies, streaming services like Netflix and Amazon, and social media platforms. According to the regulations announced in February, social media companies were given Tuesday to identify the executives who could be held liable. Streaming services and news agencies were not affected by this particular rule.
Twitter called the requirement “dangerous overreach that is inconsistent with open, democratic principles”. On Wednesday, WhatsApp sued the Indian government in a highly unusual move by Facebook’s own messaging platform, arguing that the guidelines were unconstitutional. Digital rights advocates and groups say the rules could fundamentally change the way Indians use the internet.
“The IT rules violate India’s democratic framework and constitutional guarantees,” said Apar Gupta, executive director of the Internet Freedom Foundation, a rights group. “Several requirements among them are unconstitutional and undermine freedom of expression and privacy for millions of Internet users in India.”
Understand India’s Covid Crisis
India isn’t the only country that has tried to enforce stricter regulations on the internet. The steps have raised questions about how freedom of speech can be reconciled with security and privacy.
In the US, politicians have targeted big tech companies like Facebook and Amazon to influence what people buy and read and how companies treat users’ personal information. European officials are working on new laws that would give the government more powers to remove misinformation and other material deemed toxic.
On Thursday, the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, the Indian branch of government that pressured Twitter to remove material, released a response to the companies’ statement on Koo, a competing service.
“The new rules are only intended to prevent abuse and abuse of social media,” Ravi Shankar Prasad, India’s Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, said in the statement. “The government welcomes criticism, including the right to ask questions.”
In a separate statement on Thursday, the ministry criticized Twitter for its comments, calling them “completely unfounded, false and an attempt to defame India”. The protection of freedom of expression in India is not the “prerogative” of the company.
Last week, the government urged social media platforms, including Twitter and Facebook, to remove all content related to coronavirus variants in India, especially those that indicated the variants were spreading in other countries. Twitter confirmed that it had received the request but had not removed the posts until Thursday evening. Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At least one of the variants first seen in India, known as B.1.617.2, now outperforms all other versions of the virus in the UK, scientists in the UK have said, and is present in at least 48 other countries. The government request called this claim “totally wrong”.
Free speech attorneys said the government has no legal basis to ask social media platforms to remove this content, which could apply to news reports and major scientific discussions about the virus in India, where it continues to kill thousands of people every day The country’s health system far beyond its borders.
“The new rules are like a choke collar,” said Devdutta Mukhopadhyay, a lawyer working on freedom of speech in India. “The government will pull on it if it wants to.”
