On Monday, Twitter temporarily blocked people in India from seeing several accounts belonging to activists, political commentators, a popular movie star and a major investigative journalism magazine, the Caravan, by order of the government of the country. All the reports had one thing in common – they had criticized the Hindu nationalist prime minister, Narendra Modi. Twitter restored the accounts more than six hours later, telling government officials that the tweets and accounts were free speech and worthy of publication.
The move comes during a crackdown on dissent in India and raises questions about the role that American technology companies play there. In recent weeks, Indian authorities have opened sedition lawsuits against prominent journalists for reporting on protests by farmers who challenge the Modi government. Over the weekend, police in New Delhi, the capital of India, arrested two journalists, one of whom is still in custody.
Last week, calls to “shoot” protesting farmers were in the trend for hours on Twitter, while thousands of tweets encouraging police brutality flooded the platform.
Some of the most prominent accounts that Twitter has temporarily blocked in the country include those that tweeted updates about farmers’ protests, in addition to the Caravan.
“The Caravan team feels that Twitter’s decision to retain our official account is the latest in a long list of targeted attacks that were set up in the publication for pursuing important stories without fear,” Vinod K. Jose, executive editor of the magazine, and one of the journalists who had charges of sedition filed against him last week told BuzzFeed News.
After the Caravan returned to Twitter, tweeted, “Our account has been restored. Today, more than ever, it is clear that the real media needs real allies. We thank our readers, subscribers and collaborators for their unwavering support. “
In a statement, Twitter said: “Many countries have laws that can be applied to Tweets and / or Twitter account content. In our ongoing effort to make our services available to people everywhere, if we receive a request with appropriate scope from an authorized entity, it may be necessary to retain access to certain content in a given country from time to time. Transparency is vital to protect freedom of expression, so we have a notification policy for withheld content. Upon receipt of content retention requests, we will immediately notify affected account holders (unless we are prohibited from doing so, for example, if we receive a sealed court order). “
Twitter retains tweets and accounts, including in the United States, if it receives “a valid and appropriately scoped request from an authorized entity,” according to the company Internet network location. These tweets or accounts are usually visible in the rest of the world. The company says it “promptly notifies affected users, unless we are prohibited from doing so” and publishes requests on Lumen, a Harvard University project.
But people whose accounts were temporarily blocked in India said Twitter did not notify them before taking action.
“They did not contact me before taking action against my account,” Sanjukta Basu, a political commentator whose Twitter account he retained, told BuzzFeed News.
José said Twitter did not notify the magazine before blocking the account and only heard from the company an hour after the blockade. “Twitter did not reveal where the legal removal request came from,” he said.
BuzzFeed News found that the legal order came from India’s IT ministry under a section of the law that allows the government to order the removal of content that is considered a national security threat and that prevents companies like Twitter from disclosing information about blocking a account or a tweet. The IT ministry refused to issue an official statement.
Twitter confirmed that the requests came from the Indian IT ministry, but said it would not upload them to the Lumen database as the accounts have been unlocked.
The company is caught between local laws and global human rights standards.
“Internet platforms need to ensure that any actions they take in response to governmental content removal orders respect international human rights standards,” Raman Jit Singh Chima, senior international advisor and Asia Pacific policy director at Access Now, an Internet nonprofit advocacy organization, he told BuzzFeed News. “They must challenge orders that are off limits or that explicitly seek to prevent media organizations from reporting.”
This may mean, even if temporarily, taking actions that would seem unthinkable in other countries – actions that have generated strong criticism.
“Can you imagine @twitter summarily snatching the New Yorker or Atlantic account after a legal letter?” tweeted Nicholas Dawes, executive editor of City and former director of Human Rights Watch. “Applying human rights-based standards for moderating content on a global scale can be difficult, but it is the job they signed up for.”