Twitter said on Tuesday that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sued the Indian government to escalate the fight for social media companies in India as it seeks more control over important online posts.
A Twitter proceeding filed in the Karnataka High Court in Bangalore challenges a recent order from the Government of India to remove content and block dozens of accounts. Twitter responded to an order with a deadline on Monday, but then sought judicial relief. There is no date for judges to consider Twitter proceedings.
The proceedings are the first legal objection issued by the Indian government to oppose a law passed in 2021, which expanded the censorship authority of the Indian government. The rule allows governments to monitor Twitter and other social media companies, and authorities can require them to hide critical posts and accounts from Indian users. Business executives may face criminal penalties if they do not comply with their demands.
The law has been protested by Twitter and other social media platforms and sees India as an integral part of its long-term growth plan. The two companies claim that Indian rules allow the government to widely censor critics and are eroding security measures such as encryption. However, Indian officials say a law is needed to combat false information online.
Twitter isn’t trying to overturn the laws, but claims that the government is over-interpreting those laws, says someone with filing knowledge who isn’t allowed to speak publicly. rice field.
The Indian government urged Twitter to follow the rules on Tuesday. “It is everyone’s responsibility to comply with the laws passed by the Diet,” Ashwini Weishnau, Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, said at a press conference.
Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have numbered to squeeze the power of tech companies and crack down on what’s being said online by using new information technology laws to curb dissent. I’ve been working for a year. Twitter, for example, is being told to remove content related to complaints about civil liberties, protests, press freedom, and criticisms of the government’s response to a pandemic. WhatsApp was told that on request, people’s private messages needed to be “traceable” to government agencies.
In addition, the new rule required social media companies to hire India-based executives to ensure compliance with government requirements for content deletion and account blocking. If these actions do not occur, executives may be subject to criminal liability and may face up to seven years in prison.
Twitter has previously criticized government tactics and called for respect for free speech. According to the company, Indian law was used “arbitrarily and disproportionately” against the company and its users, including journalists, opposition politicians, and nonprofits.
Twitter’s proceedings follow last year’s proceedings against a new national law by WhatsApp, a messaging app owned by Meta. WhatsApp has asked the Delhi High Court to block the enforcement of rules that require users’ messages to be traceable. Regarding WhatsApp cases, the government states that the right to privacy is not “absolute” but “subject to reasonable restrictions”.
The proceeding is pending.
Twitter has in the past sued the government to defend anonymous users and oppose censorship. In 2014, the company sued the United States, claiming that the government banned Twitter’s right to free speech by blocking disclosure of surveillance information.The proceeding is Dismissed in 2020..
In 2017, Twitter sued the U.S. again and accused the government Unmask anonymous accounts It criticized the Trump administration’s immigration policy. After Twitter filed a proceeding, the government withdrew the request.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who are in the process of buying Twitter for $ 44 billion, should relax their content moderation policy and keep tweets on the platform unless they violate local law. Said that.
The Twitter proceedings against the Indian government are part of a broader battle between the largest tech companies and the world’s government over who will have the upper hand. Australia and the European Union have drafted or passed legislation limiting the power of Google, Facebook and other businesses to online speech, while other countries have serviced businesses to curb dissent and suppress protests. I’m trying to suppress.
Experts have accused the Indian government of forcing Twitter to block accounts and posts as censorship, armed with a rough definition of content that the government finds unpleasant to chase critics. ..
February 2021, Twitter permanently blocked more than 500 accounts and removed an unspecified number of other accounts from view of India after accusing the government of making instigating statements about Mr. Modi. Twitter said it was taking no action against the accounts of journalists, politicians and activists at the time, and said it did not believe that the order to block them was “in line with Indian law.” ..
In May 2021, Indian police raided Twitter’s office after the company decided to label tweets by Modi’s party politicians as “manipulated media.” Those tweets attacked Mr. Modi and members of the opposition who were using the platform to criticize his government’s stumbling block to the pandemic.
And in recent weeks, police in New Delhi have arrested Mohammedsvale, co-founder of the prominent fact-checking website, in a 2018 tweet sharing images of an old Hindiwood movie. The government said the image was causing community incongruity after a Twitter account with only a few followers and a single tweet complained about it and tagged the Delhi police. The account disappeared immediately.
Last week, Twitter was ordered to block tweets from Freedom House, an American non-profit organization that referred to India as an example of a country with declining press freedom.
Appal Gupta, Managing Director of the Internet Freedom Foundation, said: “It’s an undemocratic and authoritarian reaction.”
Lawyers and tech experts said Twitter and other social media companies were sandwiched between rocks and difficult places. They are required to comply with national law, but they also challenge to support freedom of speech in the world’s largest democracy.
“I think they’re fighting a defeat, because on the one hand they take the government to court, but on the other hand they tend to sink,” said Salman Waris, a Tech Legis lawyer. .. New Delhi specializes in international technical law.
Musical Contributed to the report from New Delhi.