Hundreds of Indian Twitter accounts, including those belonging to news sites, activists and actors, were suspended for more than twelve hours on Monday after the government said users were posting content that incited violence.
The move comes in the wake of protests by Indian farmers who have been protesting against a new farm bill for a week. The protests turned violent last week when riot police were called in. One protester was killed and hundreds were injured, including police.
An Indian government official said the Interior Ministry had demanded the suspension of a ‘nearly 250 Twitter accounts’ that allegedly posted content to promote violence.
“The order was issued against accounts using the hashtag #modiplanningfarmersgenocide that began on January 30,” the government source said.
Those blocked – including the investigative news website Caravan India, political commentator Sanjukta Basu, activist Hansraj Meena, actor Sushant Singh and CEO of state broadcaster Prasar Bharti, Shashi Shekhar Vempati – were silenced inside India without warning. explanation, their pages contain only the message ‘account has been withheld in India in response to a legal claim’.
Two popular accounts linked to the farmers’ protests were also blocked: Kisan Ekta Morcha and Tractor2Twitr.
There was no public explanation or details about the legal claim of the government. The bills were still visible outside India and were recovered late Monday within about twelve hours offline within the country.
Since November, tens of thousands of Indian farmers have set up a protest camp in Ghazipur, on the outskirts of the capital, Delhi, demanding the repeal of agricultural legislation that would weaken the rules regarding the sale, pricing and storage of farm products. The rules have isolated Indian farmers from the free market for decades. Farmers argue that the reforms will leave them at the mercy of large agricultural corporations and destroy the livelihoods of millions of families.
Narendra Modi’s government denies this, saying the reforms offer new opportunities for farmers to sell their products directly to private buyers.
The protests were one of the most serious challenges to the authority of the Modi government. Farmers make up almost half of India’s workforce.
A Twitter statement about ‘country withholding contentSaid the suspension of accounts or content is routine, arguing that “many countries have laws that can apply to tweets and Twitter account content”.
“If we receive a proper scope of the request from an authorized body, it is necessary to withhold access to certain content in a particular country from time to time.”
It was Twitter’s policy to notify holders of the accounts in question ‘immediately’ when they receive requests to withhold them, unless prohibited by law.
But Vinod Jose, the editorial director of Caravan magazine, whose official Twitter account had more than 280,000 followers, told Reuters that Caravan had not received any notification from Twitter. ‘It’s similar to censorship. The actions of Twitter follow several instances of rebellion that Caravan editors have filed for the farmers ’protest. ”
With Reuters