NEW DELHI – Twitter held up when the Indian government last week demanded that the social media platform remove hundreds of accounts criticizing the government for its behavior during protests by angry farmers.
On Wednesday, under threat of jail time for its local employees, Twitter admitted.
The San Francisco-based company said it had permanently blocked more than 500 accounts and removed an indeterminate number of others from view within India after the government accused them of inciting comments about Narendra Modi, the country’s prime minister. Twitter said it acted after the government issued a notice of non-compliance, a move experts say could put the company’s local employees at risk from being held in custody for up to seven years.
In a blog post Twitter said it took no action against the accounts of media organizations, journalists, activists or politicians, saying it did not believe the orders to block them “are in accordance with Indian law.” It also said it was investigating options under local law and requested a meeting with a senior government official.
“We remain committed to protecting the health of the conversation on Twitter,” he said, “and firmly believe the tweets need to flow.”
The brewing dispute in India is a particularly stark example of Twitter’s challenge to endorse its self-proclaimed principles in support of freedom of expression. The platform has become entangled in a heated debate about the excessive role of social media in politics, and the growing demand in many countries to curb that influence.
In the United States, Twitter was pushed to the center of the clash last month after it permanently suspended the account of Donald J. Trump, the former president, for encouraging protests in Washington, DC, which turned violent. In that case, it exercised its right under US laws that allow social platforms to control speech about their services.
But in India, Twitter is blocking accounts at the request of the government. Under the control of Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party, the Indian government has become increasingly aggressive in suppressing dissent. It has arrested activists and journalists and pressured media organizations to cut its line. It has also cut off mobile Internet access in problem areas.
Amid mounting rivalry with China, the Indian government has blocked a number of apps owned by Chinese companies, including TikTok, the short video-sharing network best known for its videos of dancing teens and tweens.
The government has also taken a harder line on its critics on social media. Under Indian law, Twitter executives in India can face up to seven years in prison and a fine if the company fails to comply with government orders to remove content it deems subversive or a threat to public order and national security.
The country’s judiciary has increasingly sided with the government and has seen Mr. Modi handed a string of political victories, say lawyers and human rights activists. In November 2019, India’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hindus in a decades-old dispute over a holy site in Ayodhya, disputed by Muslims. It has also postponed the lifting of internet restrictions and movement in the disputed region of Jammu and Kashmir to a government-led committee.
Digital rights groups say government pressure on Twitter amounts to censorship.
“The force used to ban smartphone apps is the same force used to get Twitter to delete accounts and order Internet disconnections,” said Apar Gupta, the executive director of the Internet Freedom Foundation.
India represents a potentially huge growth market for international internet companies, with its 1.3 billion people, wider internet access and an ambitious middle class. The stronger hand of the government in the company complicates the prospects.
According to a company, the country is number 5 in requests to Twitter to remove content transparency report, after Japan, Russia, South Korea and Turkey. The country has sent nearly 5,500 legal requests, including court orders, to block content. It also sent approximately 5,900 requests to access users’ personal information between January 2012 and June 2020.
That involvement came to the fore last year when a prominent public interest lawyer, Prashant Bhushan, wrote tweets criticizing the role of the Indian Supreme Court in eroding liberties in the country. Twitter has removed the respective tweets. At the time, lawyers and digital rights advocates said the company set a dangerous legal standard. Twitter declined to comment on Wednesday, saying it had deleted Mr Bhushan’s tweets in accordance with legal guidelines.
India’s protesting farmers have opened a new front in the government’s efforts to tame social media.
Mr. Modi is engaged in a monthly dispute with the country’s farmers over his government’s market-friendly agricultural laws. Farmers, mostly from the state of Punjab in the northwest of the country, have set up camp in areas around the capital, New Delhi. In late January, protests turned violent after farmers entered the town – many on tractors – and clashed with police in some places.
Last week, Mr. Modes Twitter to delete more than 1,000 additional accounts related to the protests. It claimed many were led by overseas sympathizers of the Khalistan movement, an effort that had been more active in recent decades calling on members of the Sikh religion to break away and form their own. Some were backed by Pakistan, India’s arch-rival, the government claimed.
Twitter initially suspended some of the accounts last week, including the account of The Caravan, a narrative reporting magazine that has been closely scrutinizing the demonstrations. It then recovered the bills after letting the government know that it found the content of free speech acceptable.
The Indian government’s performance received worldwide attention last week when pop singer Rihanna retweeted an article about officials shutting down internet access to parts of New Delhi during the farmers’ protests there. Greta Thunberg, the environmentalist, too tweeted about the protests and shared a link to what she called a toolkit, containing topics of conversation that the protesters supported and information on how to connect with others with similar feelings. Mr Modi’s supporters seized the link and said it showed that outside forces were supporting the farmers.
Also on Wednesday, the Indian government seemed to demonstrate to Twitter that the company needs the country more than the other way around. The Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, the government branch that has pressured Twitter to take down material, posted its response to Twitter’s blog post on a rival service in India called Koo.
Wednesday evening, there was a virtual meeting between Twitter executives and government officials.
Devdutta Mukhopadhyay, a lawyer dealing with freedom of expression in India, said Twitter was walking a “delicate balance.”
“For the companies it is a double bond,” said Ms Mukhopadhyay. “They want their services to be available in the country, but they also don’t want to be complicit in censorship that does not meet international human rights standards because it is arbitrary or disproportionate.”
She said Twitter should back down and “use its power to show the same amount of courage it did when it blocked Donald Trump’s account.”
“They shouldn’t let it go just because it’s a developing country.”
Mujib Mashal contributed to reporting.