Twitter did not remove “Shoot” from its trend topics for at least a few hours – after there were public protests and after BuzzFeed News sent an email asking for comments.
By Pranav Dixit
Sajjad Hussain / Getty Images
Farmers stormed New Delhi’s Red Fort, a national historic monument, to protest the government’s new agricultural reforms.
Calls to “shoot” at farmers protesting controversial agricultural reforms in India were on the rise for hours on Twitter on Tuesday, while thousands of tweets encouraging police brutality against them flooded the platform.
Violence broke out in the Indian capital on Tuesday after thousands of farmers, who have been camped outside New Delhi for nearly two months to protest government agricultural reforms that they say will affect their livelihoods, have entered the city and clashed with the police. Protesters broke through police barricades around the city and invaded Fort Red, a national historic monument. The police used heavy batons and fired tear gas bombs. The authorities have also blocked access to the Internet in parts of the capital, something that Indian authorities often do to suppress protests. At least one protester died.
On Twitter, supporters of India’s Hindu nationalist government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, called protesting farmers “terrorists” and encouraged police brutality against them. “They are not farmers. They’re worms, wearing fake farmer masks, ”said one of the viral tweets, which used the hashtag“ #shoot ”. “Requesting @AmitShah #shoot in cash is the only option,” said another tweet, identifying India’s interior minister and Modi’s right-hand man, responsible for law and order in the country.
“Hit them with your batons, Delhi police”, the editor of a pro-government propaganda blog tweeted in Hindi. “We are with you.”
On Tuesday morning, “Shoot” was one of the main trending topics on the platform in India, in addition to the Hindi phrase “Dilli Police lath bajao” – which loosely translates as “Delhi Police, hit them with your batons” .
“Shoot” remained on the trend section of Twitter in India for at least a few hours. It only disappeared after there was a public outcry and after BuzzFeed News sent an email asking for comments. The company also deleted the blog publisher’s tweet, saying it violated Twitter rules, and suspended its account for 12 hours. Still, the Hindi phrase encouraging police to use their batons remained a hot topic for at least another hour. A search for “#shoot” revealed hundreds of tweets asking the police to shoot protesters.
“We take steps today to protect the conversation in our service from attempts to incite violence, abuse and threats that could trigger the risk of offline damage”, A Twitter spokesman told BuzzFeed News. “Our team will take strong application judicious and impartial action on content, trends, Tweets and accounts that violate the Twitter rules. We strongly encourage everyone in the service to become familiar with the Twitter Rules and report all they believe is a violation. We are monitoring the situation closely and remain vigilant. “
In the United States, several technology platforms, including Twitter, permanently banned former President Donald Trump from the platform after his supporters broke into the U.S. Capitol earlier this month. Trump was banned from the platform “due to the risk of more violence”, tweeted Vijaya Gadde, Head of Legal, Policy and Trust and Security at Twitter. Last year, the company put a warning tag on one of the former president’s messages about the Minneapolis protests that read: “[When] the looting begins, the shooting begins. “
Experts have argued that companies based in Silicon Valley, such as Twitter and Facebook, have a double standard when it comes to enforcing their own policies globally. In non-Western countries like India, which has fallen into authoritarianism under the Modi government in recent years, technology platforms often move slowly or do not act against people who use them as a weapon to cause damage in the real world.
Last year, for example, Twitter allowed dozens of tweets about interfaith Hindu-Muslim couples to remain on the platform until BuzzFeed News asked the company about them. In December, protesters gathered outside Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, claiming that the social network was censoring content posted in support of protesting Indian farmers. And the Wall Street Journal reported that Ankhi Das, a top Facebook executive in India, prevented the company from taking action against a politician belonging to Modi’s party for posting hate speech, saying it would harm the company’s commercial interests.
Money Sharma / Getty Images
Farmers on a tractor are preparing to remove the concrete barricades set up by the police as they invaded the capital of India on January 26, 2021.
“Powerful interests everywhere have learned that Silicon Valley tools can be used to create a human rights bonfire, but the only time platforms are concerned is when they get bad publicity,” Alaphia Zoyab, director of defense at Reset , a technology policy nonprofit that aims to tackle the information crisis created by technology platforms, said BuzzFeed News.
“When Silicon Valley has to choose between protecting commercial interests or protecting human rights, they will choose the first option,” she added. “The fact is that your current business model is fundamentally incompatible with democracy and freedom because a given army of trolls in the field of those in power can simply hijack the platform to demand violence.”
Gadde did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Twitter declined to answer whether accounts in India that encourage violence would be permanently banned.