The Indian government is cracking down on social media as the coronavirus pandemic spirals out of control. India’s government directed Twitter to block more than 50 tweets criticising the country’s response to the pandemic on Thursday. Residents in the country will be unable to see tweets from people such as a state minister and an opposition member of the Indian Parliament, thanks to Twitter’s cooperation.
Information about the order was added to the Lumen database, a Harvard University project that keeps track of government takedown notices around the world, on Saturday. Medianama, an Indian technology policy website, broke the story first.
“When we obtain a legitimate legal submission, we examine it in light of the Twitter Rules as well as local law. The material will be deleted from the service if it breaches Twitter’s Rules,” a Twitter spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. “We can withhold access to the content in India only if it is determined to be illegal in a specific jurisdiction but not in violation of the Twitter Rules.”
Hundreds of tweets criticising Modi or sharing images of India’s overflowing crematoriums and hospitals were also blocked, as was a tweet from the Indian American Muslim Council, a Washington, DC–based advocacy group for Indian American Muslims. A Vice storey about the Kumbh Mela, a Hindu pilgrimage attended by hundreds of thousands of Indians, was told by that audience.
“As hundreds of thousands of Covid patients are literally gasping for air, the administration’s haste in forcing Twitter to block critical tweets shows the administration’s moral compass continues to point in a shamelessly self-serving direction,” the IAMC said in a statement.
This isn’t the first time Twitter has complied with censorship directives from the Indian government. More than 250 accounts in India were blocked in February after they protested the government’s handling of protests by hundreds of thousands of farmers against new agricultural laws. Following that, the company took a defiant stance, unblocking accounts belonging to journalists, activists, and politicians.
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