Farmers protest: More than 1,300 Twitter users have fallen under the government’s radar.
New Delhi:
The Indian government has asked the microblogging platform Twitter to remove more than 1,000 more accounts for allegedly spreading misinformation and provocative content in connection with the farmers’ protest. The 1,178 listed identifiers have been said to have Pakistani and Khalistani users, official sources have said. The social media site has yet to fully comply with the order, they said. However, the company has said it respects local laws even while “protecting its fundamental principle of free speech.”
Previously, on January 31, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology had sent a list of 257 identifiers and tweets to be blocked for similar reasons. Twitter blocked these accounts for a few hours before unilaterally unblocking them shortly after.
On February 4, the ministry shared the new list pointed to by security agencies as accounts of Khalistan sympathizers or Pakistan-backed and operating from foreign territories, threatening public order amid protests from farmers.
“Many of these accounts were also automated bots that were used to share and amplify misinformation and provocative content about farmers’ protests,” said a source.
A few days ago, Twitter’s global CEO Jack Dorsey had “liked” several tweets made by foreign celebrities in support of the farmers’ protests, the sources said. In light of this, the platform’s defiance of the government’s order to block the accounts raises several questions.
“The government is also opposed to the Twitter CEO liking some celebrity tweets as it raises questions about their neutrality,” the source said.
A Twitter spokesperson said the platform was guided by principles of transparency and empowerment of public conversation. “If we receive a valid legal request for potentially illegal content on Twitter, we review it under Twitter rules and local law. If the content violates Twitter rules, the content will be removed from the service,” the spokesperson said.
“If it is found to be illegal in a particular jurisdiction, but does not violate Twitter’s rules, we may withhold access to the content on location only. In all cases, we notify the account holder directly so they know that” We have received a legal order related to the account. Our goal is to respect local law while protecting our fundamental principles of free expression, “the spokesperson said.
The Center’s latest move comes amid the “toolkit” controversy surrounding the farmers’ protest. Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg tweeted a “toolkit” last week that she later deleted. This document, according to the police, was intended to spread discontent and ill will against the Indian government and sought to create discord between various social, religious and cultural groups.
Foreign Minister S Jaishankar said on Saturday that there was a reason his ministry reacted to comments from celebrities like Thunberg.
“I think (‘toolkit’) has revealed a lot. We have to wait and see what comes out. You can see that there was a reason why the Foreign Ministry reacted to statements made by some celebrities on matters in which he obviously didn’t know much, “said Jaishankar.
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