India clamps down on free speech to fight farmer protests thetelegraph.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thetelegraph.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Indian farmers’ protest in December 2020. Image via Wikimedia Commons by Randeep Maddoke. CC0 Public Domain.
On February 1, Twitter temporarily blocked people in India from viewing more than 250 accounts that appeared to express support to the farmers’ protests that have rocked the country for the past four months. The accounts were restored around six hours later.
Twitter then told news agency ANI that it withheld the accounts in response to a request from India s Ministry of Electronics and IT to block accounts that had tweeted the hashtag #ModiPlanningFarmerGenocide for making “fake, provocative, and intimidatory tweets.”
The US-based platform explained its decision by pointing to its policy of withholding content in certain countries, which it employs when it receives “a request from an authorized entity” in that jurisdiction.
Access Now 4 February 2021 | 6:16 am
In India, the black market for people’s personal data is booming, putting Indians’ privacy at risk. Yet the government is persisting in pushing a standalone law on “non-personal” data instead of prioritising a meaningful personal data protection regime that would keep Indians safe. That’s especially troubling for people who are already targeted for data exploitation, abuse, and discrimination, such as women, journalists, activists, and human rights defenders. Access Now is providing input in the process, urging India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to redirect its efforts to ensure strong personal data protection laws are enacted and enforced.
India Restricts Internet, Twitter Complies With Blockage Request As Farmers Protest Grows zerohedge.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from zerohedge.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Twitter restricts numerous high-profile accounts in India following ‘legal demand’ [Update]
Updated at 11.30 PM IST (6.00 PM GMT): Twitter quietly restored the accounts in India Monday evening (local time), more than 12 hours after it restricted them to users in the country. The company has issued no statement, but the following tweet from Pratik Sinha, co-founder of fact-checking organization Alt News, accurately summarizes today’s event.
Disproportionate action by Twitter by way of withholding dozens of accounts, and then quietly rolling it back. As usual, there will be no transparency. The other day, RW was asking for violence by asking Delhi Police to lath bajao and Twitter slept through that peacefully.