The government of India has threatened to arrest Facebook employees Inc.,
FB 0.89%
your WhatsApp and Twitter unit Inc.
TWTR -1.76%
while seeking to suppress political protests and gain far-reaching powers over speech on foreign-owned technology platforms, say people familiar with the warnings.
The warnings are a direct response to technology companies’ reluctance to comply with data and government removal requests related to protests by Indian farmers who made international headlines, people say. At least some of the written warnings cite specific India-based employees at risk of imprisonment if the companies fail to comply, according to two of the people.
The threats mark an escalation in India’s efforts to put pressure on US technology companies at a time when these companies are looking to the second most populous country in the world to grow in the coming years.
Some of the government’s data requests involve WhatsApp, which is very popular in India and promises users encrypted communication, which cannot be read by third parties.
A WhatsApp spokesman said the company responded to requests for data “consistent with internationally recognized standards, including human rights, legal process and the rule of law”. A Facebook spokesman said the company “responds to government requests for data in accordance with applicable law and our terms of service.”
Twitter “will continue to uphold the fundamental principles of the open Internet,” said a company spokesman, adding, “Threats to these principles are increasing worldwide, which is of great concern.”
A spokeswoman for India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology did not respond to requests for comment.
India has made new rules that give its leaders power over online speech to an extent unmatched anywhere else among open societies, legal analysts say.
The rules require technology companies to appoint executives residing in India to handle government requests, including a contact person for “24/7 coordination with agencies and police to ensure compliance with orders”, the rules say.
The rules would also compel companies to remove content that undermines national security, public order and “decency or morality”.
Indian rules require that some companies, such as WhatsApp, help to identify the origin of the messages.
Photograph:
Dhiraj Singh / Bloomberg News
Some companies, like WhatsApp, should also help identify the source of the messages. A government official said the rules would require platforms to track and store records of specific messages while commuting between users.
“In a way, you will know if a message is going viral or not,” said Rakesh Maheshwari, director of cyber law at India’s IT ministry, at a Zoom forum organized by an Indian Internet commerce association on Thursday .
Greg Nojeim, senior adviser at the Center for Democracy and Technology in Washington, said the guidelines would require WhatsApp to archive what each user shares, robbing them of the absolute privacy provided by end-to-end encryption, one of the app’s oldest practices benefits for the user.
“A large country, by adopting and enforcing these rules, can cause large messaging platforms to be withdrawn or not to offer encrypted services worldwide,” said Nojeim.
As India celebrated Republic Day in late January, farmers clashed with the police in what marked a violent escalation in a month-long protest movement over the government’s new agricultural laws. Photo: Anushree Fadnavis / Reuters (Originally published on January 26, 2021)
Legal observers say the rules do not provide a clear legal way to challenge requests to remove content or provide user data. According to India’s legal system, such requests do not require prior court approval.
In addition to the risk of imprisonment, non-compliance would also threaten the future of technology companies in a market of more than 1.3 billion people who, being outside China, are the key to their global growth.
Facebook and WhatsApp have more users in India than in any other country. Facebook said last year that it would spend $ 5.7 billion on a new partnership with an Indian telecom operator to expand operations in the country, its largest foreign investment. India is also Twitter’s fastest growing global market and crucial to its expansion as growth slows in more developed countries.
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
How can technology platforms balance freedom of expression with political demands in India? Join the conversation below.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has already shown that it is willing to shut down popular social media platforms, banning last year TikTok, which had a much larger user base than Twitter, amid tensions with China.
Twitter blocked, unblocked and then blocked hundreds of accounts in India again for posting material that the Indian government has considered inflammatory in recent weeks. The company said it refused to withdraw other accounts, despite government orders.
According to the latest statistics published by Google, Facebook and Twitter, companies regularly reject Indian requests for removal and user data. Facebook’s platforms answered half of the data requests from government users, Google with 58% and Twitter with 1%, numbers well below the world average of companies. Resistance to future requests can put you in violation of the law.
The Indian government looks ready for a fight. Delhi Police, who report to the country’s Interior Ministry, arrested Indians who allegedly collaborated with foreigners through documents from Zoom, WhatsApp and Google in a social media activism “toolkit” in support of protesting farmers . Police said the creation and dissemination of the newsletter was tantamount to sedition.
All three companies declined to comment on government requests for data related to the incident. News Corp,
owner of the Dow Jones & Co. publisher of the Wall Street Journal, has a commercial agreement to provide news via Facebook. Dow Jones has a commercial agreement to provide video content through Twitter.
A judge released one of the activists on bail last month, attributing the charges against her to “the government’s wounded vanity”. The arrests, however, serve as a wake-up call for Indian dissidents and foreign technology platforms, said Mo Dhaliwal, co-founder of the Poetic Justice Foundation, a Canadian volunteer-controlled non-profit organization that created the initial version of the toolkit.
“They are sending signals to anyone who dares to organize or communicate through these tools that ‘if you do it again, we will find you,'” said Dhaliwal.
Increasing pressure has left tech companies in trouble, said Jason Pielemeier, director of policies for the Global Network Initiative, a group focused on human rights and online privacy that is partially funded by technology companies.
“In a market the size of India, it is difficult to take the nuclear option, which means: ‘We will not obey, and if you block us, we will pay your bluff or accept the consequences'”. he said.
Pielemeier compared the demands of the Indian government regarding content, privacy and access to data with those that the Chinese government made before the main internet platforms withdrew from the country in the 1990s.
The Indian government painted the platforms as part of a conspiracy, he said, adding: “The big difference between the previous story and where we are now is that China has done very well without these companies.”
Asked in recent years about increasing restrictions on US technology companies, the Indian government said it welcomes American companies, but that they must follow Indian regulations. Officials said the government wants to protect small Indian companies, protect user data and make room for the growth of India’s own technology companies.
Write to Jeff Horwitz at [email protected] and Newley Purnell at [email protected]
Copyright © 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8