New Delhi: Twitter said Wednesday it has suspended only 500 accounts and blocked access to several others within India as it partly acceded to a government order to curb the spread of misinformation and inflammatory content around farmers’ protests.
The development comes in the backdrop of the government ordering Twitter to take down 1,178 accounts February 4 with links to Pakistan and Khalistan supporters. These accounts were spreading misinformation and provocative content related to farmers’ protests.
While Indian media claims that these 500 suspensions are backtracking of Twitter, foreign media like the Independent say Twitter is defiant and has refused to block journalists, politicians and some others because it did not consider them going against Indian laws of free speech.
Twitter, in a blog post, however, said it has not blocked accounts consisting of ‘news media entities, journalists, activists and politicians’. If it was done it ‘would violate their fundamental right to free expression’ guaranteed under the country’s law.
The government, however, termed as ‘unusual’ Twitter’s move to publish the blogpost before slated talks with the IT secretary on the issue, as sought by the US-based company.
“Upon the request of Twitter seeking a meeting with the government, the Secretary IT was to engage with senior management of Twitter. In this light, a blogpost published prior to this engagement is unusual,” the IT Ministry said in its response on ‘Koo’, a homegrown contender to Twitter. The government will share its response soon, the post on Koo added.
The blogpost by Twitter had the microblogging platform emphasising it will continue to advocate for the right of free expression of its users and that it is ‘actively exploring options under Indian law – both for Twitter and for the accounts that have been impacted’.
In all, Twitter has taken action against over 1,000 accounts – 500 as sought by the government and an equal number that were found by the company engaging in platform manipulation and spam.
The government had late last month sought blocking of 257 tweets and handles in connection with the agitation by farmers over the new pro-market agricultural laws. Twitter complied, only to restore the accounts hours later. This led to the government issuing a non-compliance notice and a warning of stringent penalties and potential jail terms.
Twitter in the blogpost also said it had taken steps to reduce the visibility of the hashtags containing harmful content that included prohibiting them from trending on Twitter and appearing as recommended ‘Search’ terms.
It has ‘withheld a portion of the accounts identified in the blocking orders’ within India, making them accessible only outside India. It, however, did not provide details of the handles against whom action had been taken.