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.