On Monday, Twitter temporarily prevented people in India from viewing multiple reports from activists, political commentators, a popular movie star, and a leading investigative journalist magazine, Caravan, under orders from the country’s government. All of the reports had one thing in common: they had criticized India’s Hindu nationalist prime minister, Narendra Modi. Twitter restored the accounts more than six hours later, notifying government officials that the tweets and accounts represented free speech and were current.
The move comes during a crackdown on dissent in India and raises questions about the role American tech companies are playing there. In the past few weeks, Indian authorities have charged prominent journalists with sedition against farmers’ protests against the Modi government. At the weekend in New Delhi, India’s capital, police arrested two journalists, one of whom is still in custody.
Last week, calls to “shoot” protesting farmers raged for hours on Twitter as thousands of tweets encouraging police brutality flooded the platform.
In addition to the caravan, the most famous accounts that Twitter has temporarily blocked in the country also included those who tweeted about updates to the farmers’ protests.
“The Caravan staff believe that Twitter’s decision to withhold our official account is the latest in a long list of targeted attacks aimed at the publication to fearlessly follow important stories,” said Vinod K. Jose , Editor-in-chief of the magazine, and one of the journalists charged with sedition last week, told BuzzFeed News.
After the caravan returned to Twitter, they tweeted, “Our account has been restored. It is now more clear than ever that real media need real allies. We thank our readers, subscribers, and contributors for their tireless support. “
In a statement, Twitter said: “Many countries have laws that may apply to tweets and / or Twitter account content. In our ongoing efforts to make our services available to people everywhere, it may be necessary from time to time to deny access to certain content in a particular country when we receive a proper request from an authorized agency. Transparency is critical to protecting freedom of expression. So we have a notification policy for withheld content. Upon receipt of the request to withhold content, we will notify the account holder concerned immediately (unless we are prohibited from doing so, e.g. if we receive a court order under seal). “
Twitter withholds tweets and accounts, including in the US, when it receives “a valid and proper request from an authorized body,” according to the company’s website. These tweets or accounts are usually visible in the rest of the world. The company states that it will “notify affected users immediately unless we are prohibited from doing so” and publishes the inquiries on Lumen, a Harvard University project.
But people whose accounts were temporarily suspended in India said Twitter did not notify them before taking action.
“They didn’t contact me until they cracked down on my account,” Sanjukta Basu, a political commentator whose account was withheld by Twitter, told BuzzFeed News.
Jose said Twitter did not notify the magazine before the account was suspended and did not hear from the company until an hour after the suspension. “Twitter did not reveal where the legal removal request came from,” he said.
BuzzFeed News learned that the legal system came from India’s IT ministry under a section of the law that allows the government to order the removal of content deemed a threat to national security and prevents companies like Twitter from sharing information to disclose the suspension of an account or a tweet. The IT ministry declined to make an official statement.
Twitter confirmed the orders were from India’s IT ministry but said they would not be uploaded to the Lumen database because the accounts had been unlocked.
The company finds itself between local laws and global human rights standards.
“Internet platforms must ensure that any action they take in response to government orders to remove content complies with international human rights standards,” said Raman Jit Singh Chima, senior international counsel and director of Asia-Pacific policy for Access Now. a non-profit internet advocacy group. said BuzzFeed News. “You should challenge orders that go overboard or that are specifically designed to prevent media organizations from reporting.”
This can even mean temporarily taking measures that seem unthinkable in other countries – measures that lead to sharp criticism.
“Can you imagine @twitter closing the account of the New Yorker or the Atlantic after a legal letter?” tweeted Nicholas Dawes, city editor-in-chief and former director of Human Rights Watch. “Applying human rights-based standards for content moderation on a global scale may be difficult, but it is the job they signed up for.”
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