In response to legal notices from the government through 2021 regarding content relating to the farmers’ protests, Pakistani government accounts, and a report by a non-profit organisation that claimed internet freedom in India was declining, Twitter has blocked access to over 80 links on the social media platform, mostly specific posts but also a large number of accounts.
Some of these restrictions, which Twitter labels as “Country Withheld” geo-blocks since they only restrict access in a specific geographic area rather than removing content entirely, were implemented over the weekend.
According to information provided by Twitter to the Lumen database, an internet transparency repository, the action was taken in response to 24 legal directives that the government sent throughout the course of 2021.
According to the Lumen disclosure, the government cited the Information Technology Act. A Twitter employee who asked to remain anonymous added that the action was in line with the company’s Country Withheld policy because it may be necessary to block access to some content in response to a legitimate legal request.
The employee also noted that the withholdings are only made in the particular country or jurisdiction where the content has been found to be unlawful.
However, it is noteworthy that Kisan Ekta Morcha—which posted a hashtag last year that appeared to accuse the administration of planning to murder farmers—and Tractor 2 Twitter, two active accounts during the farm protests with a combined following of more than 500,000, were among the accounts deleted.
Additionally, five tweets from the American nonprofit Freedom House were deleted. These articles discussed the Freedom on the Net, 2020 report by the organisation, that discussed the decreasing freedoms of internet access for individuals all across the world. According to the report, India has seen the most internet outages.
A tweet by journalist Rana Ayyub, who made a comment in relation to a court decision requiring a survey of the Gyanvapi mosque, was one of the other well-known content items withheld.
Later, the Kisan Ekta Morcha posted on its Instagram account: “Another attack by the Government of India on the rights of farmers and workers.”
The government was urged by experts to explain the rationale behind the legal requests.
The Internet Freedom Foundation in a statement on Twitter: “Citizens have the right to challenge blocking of online content, but they are unable to do so without access to these orders. Thus, we have consistently advocated for such disclosures as they are crucial for holding the government accountable.”
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