Twitter stuck between a rock and a hard place in India

Twitter stuck between a rock and a hard place in India

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Early last week, Twitter (TWTR) believes hundreds of accounts suspended at government request, including a handle with more than 200,000 followers supporting the continued protest action by farmers against new agricultural reforms and another belongs to one of the country’s most prominent magazines.
“In our sustained effort to make our services available to people everywhere if we have a proper scope requested from an authorized body, it may be necessary to withhold access to certain content in a particular country from time to time, ‘a Twitter spokesman said in a statement at the time.
The company recovered the accounts a few hours later after a public outrage, but is now reportedly under pressure from authorities to block it again. According to a report by BuzzFeed News, the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology sent a notice to Twitter threatening its employees with up to seven years in prison.

Twitter said it acknowledged receipt of the notice and sought a “formal dialogue” with the Indian government.

“The safety of our employees is a top priority for us on Twitter,” a company spokesman told CNN Business. “We are still working on the government of India from a position of respect,” the spokesperson added.

The Indian government has not responded to several requests for comment.

Who will cut first?

With more than 700 million internet users, India is a large and important market for global technology companies, although it remains uncertain as the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to tighten its grip on the internet and social media.

The Modi government has previously clashed with platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp and has proposed regulations that will expand its ability to police content online. It also banned TikTok and dozens of other applications last year after diplomatic tensions with China escalate, and it has completely shut down the internet in several parts of the country to quell protests.
India cuts internet around New Delhi as protesting farmers clash with police
Now Twitter is the latest company to find itself on the right side of government. The platform has become an important channel for the public – and increasingly international – debate between proponents and critics of the Indian government’s farm laws. According to research firm Statista, the company has had about 19 million users in India since October last year – more than any country other than the United States and Japan.

“The shrinking space for civil society is reflected by censorship and anti-democratic regulations to censor users of their rights to freedom of speech,” said Thenmozhi Soundararajan, executive director of the advocacy group Equality Labs. “It’s time for the world to understand how much danger there is right now and that US companies like Twitter and Facebook need to act before it’s too late.”

Twitter seems to be facing opposition to the Indian government at the moment by keeping the accounts active.

“We review every report we receive from the government as soon as possible, and take appropriate steps regarding such reports, while ensuring that we protect our fundamental values ​​and commitment to public discourse,” the company spokesman said. “We strongly believe that the open and free exchange of information has a positive global impact, and that the tweets should continue to flow.”

But if the government prefers to compensate for the threats or exacerbate the situation, Twitter is left with few good options.

“There are two main risks: the first is for Twitter employees in India, who could be at risk if the company does not meet the requirements,” said Jillian York, director of freedom of expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

“The second risk is that Twitter continues to refuse and be blocked in India. While this may be the right moral outcome, it is obviously not the best result for the Indian people, many of whom rely on social media to get important messages out about what is happening on the ground, ”she added.

A man on Thursday read tweets from Indian celebrities, one of the many who support the Indian government, on his mobile phone in New Delhi, India.

Thread the needle

While Twitter and the Indian government remain on a stalemate with each other, both parties must also deal with external investigation.

Social media companies have long been under pressure to do more to combat misinformation and hate speech on their platforms. And these issues, which are hotly debated in the United States, often have far more advanced and sinister consequences in countries where businesses have a smaller business footprint but a much larger impact.
Twitter has been more proactive over the past few months about policing its platform, taking down thousands of accounts linked to conspiracy theory QAnon and banning one of its most productive and controversial users – former US President Donald Trump. With that ban, Twitter showed willingness to apply its policies to a world leader who violated them, even though it was at the end of his term. The position in India also sets it against a mighty world leader in an important market.

“Jack has shown in the past that he can lead with his values,” Soundararajan said, referring to Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter.

But India, with more than three times the population of the United States and a very different social and political context, presents Twitter with one of the most difficult challenges outside its own country. In another apparent setback, the company also confirmed this week that its public policy chief for India, Mahima Kaul, will retire in April after more than five years. (Twitter does not break user data for India, but third-party research suggests that the country is one of its larger markets.)

“The fundamental problem is consistency … are they able to do the same kind of contextual analysis that they did around QAnon posts, hydroxychloroquine posts and Trump’s incitement?” said David Kaye, a professor of law at the University of California, Irvine, who previously served as United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Advancement and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Expression and Expression. “India is a wonderful example of how difficult it is.”

India, which considers itself the largest democracy in the world, must also calibrate its response. Even as he fights Twitter, the Modi government is fighting a perception battle with some of Twitter’s most prominent voices – the country’s foreign ministry recently issued a statement expressing ‘sensationalist hashtag and comments on social media ‘especially as celebrities and others’ after tweets about the farmer protests by singer Rihanna and environmental activist Greta Thunberg went viral.

“I think there is still a risk that Modi in particular appears to be incapable of dealing with such fundamental democratic principles, such as the right to peaceful assembly, the right to protest, the right to criticize, and so on,” he said. Kaye said. “I think it will be interesting to see if the government of Biden and other governments, which are friendly to India but in the democratic camp, really encourage the government to take a different approach here.”

CNN’s Manveena Suri and Esha Mitra contributed to this report.

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