Indian Govt Ordered Twitter To Censor Tweets That Criticised Country's Internet Freedom
The report highlights that the tweets make use of a version of the world map with borders India disputes. As per the report, this could be the reason why they were singled out for compliance.
The Indian government in 2021 ordered Twitter to censor tweets by nonprofit ¡®Freedom House¡¯ that spoke about the decline of internet freedom in India.
Twitter
Also Read: Internet Freedom Declining Globally: China Is Worst, India Not Far Behind
Reported first by Entrackr, Twitter revealed this on Sunday. The microblogging platform has gone ahead and removed the tweets that were found promoting Freedom House¡¯s Freedom In the World 2021 report.
Based on a copy of the disclosure accessed by Twitter, the report is no longer visible in India, however, it continues to be available on Twitter for users in other nations.
The tweet sharing the report which has been censored, speaks about detaining individuals for questioning the government¡¯s policies online as well as connectivity restrictions that have been put into place since August 2019 that still continues in Indian Kashmir.
The report highlights that the tweets make use of a version of the world map with borders India disputes. As per the report, this could be the reason why they were singled out for compliance.
Twitter also blocked a tweet by journalist Rana Ayyub, a series of political handles that claimed to represent the Indian National Congress, official government and diplomatic accounts belonging to Pakistan, the account for London-based writer Farid Qureshi as well as multiple accounts that spoke about farmer protests last year.
Reuters
Also read: Twitter Concerned Of Potential Threat To Freedom Of Expression In India
Not all requests have been compiled by Twitter. For instance, the account of journalist Mohammed Zubair who had tweeted against BJP spokesperson¡¯s controversial remarks on Prophet Muhammad.
The tweet was ordered to be withheld by the Indian government. However, Twitter told Zubair it wouldn¡¯t do so as such requests may be far wider in scope than the disclosure indicates.
Overall, the content removal requests came in 24 batches but only disclosed and enforced these requests on Sunday.
For more in the world of technology and science, keep reading Indiatimes.com.
