Centre pulls up Twitter for late compliance to legal orders, flags differential treatment

On Wednesday, the Centre pulled up Twitter over the delay on obeying its order to remove Tweets and hashtags related to 'farmer genocide' and Khalistan sympathizers. In a virtual meeting with the company's Vice President Global Public Policy Monique Meche and Vice President Legal Jim Baker, the IT Ministry Secretary asserted that India values freedom and criticism. However, he stressed that freedom of expression is not absolute and subject to reasonable restrictions as mentioned in Article 19(2) of the Constitution. 

While making it clear that Twitter is welcome to do business in India, he specified that it must follow Indian laws irrespective of its own rules and guidelines. Expressing strong displeasure at the fact that the company allowed the content with the hashtag referring to 'farmer genocide' to continue despite the Centre's issuance of an emergency order, he conveyed that Twitter had chosen to side with people seeking to provoke disturbance to public order. Taking his argument further, the MeitY secretary pointed out the platform's differential response to the Capitol Hill incident and the Red Fort disturbance. When the supporters of the then US President Donald Trump breached the Capitol on January 6, his Twitter account was suspended and banned permanently later on.

Moreover, he called upon Twitter to take strong action against well-coordinated campaigns against India on its platform as elaborated in the toolkit shared by environmental activist Greta Thunberg. The Twitter leadership was also informed that doubts arise about the platform's commitment to transparency from the manner in which it allows " fake, unverified, anonymous and automated bot accounts" to be operated. As per sources, the Union government made it clear that there cannot be any compromise on blocking 257 objectionable handles. On its part, the Twitter representatives affirmed their commitment to abiding Indian laws. 

Read: Anupam Kher Joins Homegrown Twitter-substitute 'Koo', Urges People To Join The Platform

Read: Twitter Watching? Centre Uses Koo To Call Out Its 'unusual' Blog Post; Sets Record Clear

More than 500 accounts suspended

In a blog post earlier in the day, Twitter revealed that it had suspended more than 500 accounts that were engaging in platform manipulation and spam from January 26 onwards. While acknowledging that it had received multiple blocking orders from the MeitY in the last 10 days under Section 69A of the IT Act, it admitted to only taking partial action. For instance, the blog observed that a portion of the accounts featuring in the blocking orders will now be available only outside India.

Justifying its decision to not block certain accounts, it wrote, "Because we do not believe that the actions we have been directed to take are consistent with Indian law, and, in keeping with our principles of defending protected speech and freedom of expression, we have not taken any action on accounts that consist of news media entities, journalists, activists, and politicians. To do so, we believe, would violate their fundamental right to free expression under Indian law. We informed MeitY of our enforcement actions today, February 10, 2021. We will continue to maintain dialogue with the Indian government and respectfully engage with them."

Read: Anti-India Twitter Crackdown Escalates; Twitter Seeks Formal Dialogue With Govt Of India