On Monday, Twitter temporarily banned Indians from accessing a number of accounts of politicians, politicians, a popular video writer, and a leading research magazine, Traveler, authorized by the government of the country. All the accounts had one thing in common – they insulted the Indian Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi. Twitter restored the accounts six hours later, telling government officials that the tweets and accounts were free to speak and had a good reputation.
This has come at a time when the Indian government has been at loggerheads with some people and raises questions about how American art companies are helping out there. In recent weeks, Indian officials have said so shipped lawsuits against prominent journalists for reporting on farmers’ protests against the Modi government. Over the weekend, police in New Delhi, the capital of India, imprisoned two journalists, one of whom is still in prison.
Last week, a call for a “shot” of protesting farmers fixed for hours on Twitter, when thousands of tweets promoting police brutality flooded the platform.
Some of the most popular accounts that Twitter has temporarily closed in the country are those that sent tweets from farmers’ shows, including on the Caravan.
“Caravan officials feel that Twitter’s decision to suspend our account is the latest in a series of relentless campaigns,” said Vinod K. Jose, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, and one of its co-accused The charges against him last week told BuzzFeed News.
Caravan back on Twitter, it wrote, “Our account has been restored. Today more than ever, it is clear that true media needs to be united. We thank our readers, subscribers and contributors for their unwavering support. ”
In a statement, Twitter said: “Most countries have rules that can be applied to Tweets and / or the content of Twitter accounts. In our ongoing efforts to make our services available to the public, if we receive a well-received request from a reputable agency, it may be necessary to block access to certain resources from time to time. Transparency is essential to the protection of the right to freedom of expression, and that is why we have a policy that we have banned. Upon receipt of a request to discontinue the content of our site, we will promptly notify the holders of the accounts concerned (unless we are prohibited from doing so for example if we receive a court order at the time of purchase). ”
Twitter prohibits tweets and accounts, including in the United States, from receiving “legitimate and legitimate requests from a legitimate agency,” according to the company. web page. These tweets or accounts are available worldwide. The company says it “notifies affected users only if we are prohibited from doing so,” and publishes the request. Lumen, a Harvard University project.
But people whose accounts were temporarily closed in India said Twitter had not yet notified them before taking action.
“He did not contact me before taking any action on my account,” Sanjukta Basu, a political activist whose Twitter account was not suspended, told BuzzFeed News.
Jose said Twitter did not notify the magazine before closing it, and only heard from the company an hour later. “Twitter did not disclose where the legal removal came from,” he said.
BuzzFeed News noted that the order came from the IT Ministry of India under a section a law that allows the government to order the removal of such views that threaten national security, as well as those that prevent companies like Twitter from disclosing information about account hacking or tweet. The IT ministry declined to comment.
Twitter has confirmed that the rules are from India’s IT ministry, but says they will not be able to post them on the Lumen page as accounts have been opened.
The company is found to be in compliance with local laws and international human rights standards.
“Internet platforms need to ensure that whatever they do in accordance with state law in relation to their rights is in line with international law,” said Raman Jit Singh Chima, director of global planning and director of Asia Pacific Policy at Access Now. using the internet, he told BuzzFeed News. “They have to oppose laws that are too numerous, or that want to oppress media organizations for not reporting.”
This could mean, albeit temporarily, an action that seemed impossible in some countries – which was strongly criticized.
“Can you imagine @twitter briefly writing a New Yorker or Atlantic article following a legal letter?” he wrote Nicholas Dawes, City Editor-in-Chief and former Human Rights Watch editor. “Implementing human rights standards in a fair and equitable manner around the world can be challenging, but it is a work in progress.”
