India: Twitter Accused of Censoring Modi's Critics

Facts

• Twitter has been accused of cooperating in censorship with India's PM Narendra Modi's government as it agreed to block more than 120 accounts on the behest of the state in the aftermath of the search for a fugitive Sikh separatist leader.¹
• This comes after 27M people across Punjab were left without mobile internet access between March 18-21 as part of a government hunt for Amritpal Singh Sandhu, allegedly to hinder the spread of misinformation at the time.²
• The region of Punjab and the Sikh community have seen a recent rise in tension with the Indian state, with the likes of Singh demanding the creation of an independent state of Khalistan or a separate Sikh homeland. Similar sentiments in the 1980s led to a violent insurgency in which thousands were killed.³
• Accounts that were banned in the third-largest market for Twitter include the Canadian politician Jagmeet Singh, the Canadian poet Rupi Kaur, several journalists, and an Indian MP, with claims that the Modi government has taken 'draconian measures' and cracked down on dissent coming from Sikh or other minority communities.¹
• On Tuesday, it was also reported that Twitter had geo-blocked the official government account of Pakistan for anyone within India — a measure that's also believed to have occurred in July and October 2022. The orders can be made by the Modi government under the 2000 IT Act.⁴
• In response to accusations of the social media app enforcing censorship, Twitter owner Elon Musk, who has continuously advocated for free speech, tweeted he can't deal with every aspect of the platform immediately while simultaneously running Tesla and SpaceX.⁵

Sources: ¹Guardian, ²Wired, ³BBC News, ⁴The register and ⁵Al mayadeen english.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by Techdirt. While Musk argues that he supports free speech, he doesn't mean all free speech. In reality, his support is conditioned on a country's law, meaning that when an oppressive, censorial government — such as Modi's — can legally suppress freedom of expression, Musk and Twitter are happy to comply. Musk's desire for free speech only extends to his ability to get away with saying what he wants rather than standing up to authoritarian regimes.
• Narrative B, as provided by Timesnow. It's ironic that Western mainstream media is claiming that Musk's Twitter has colluded with Modi's government to silence the opposition just weeks after it was exposed that some 40K accounts belonging to real people, primarily Americans who had never been to India and who were not Hindu, were targeted in 2021 by a US-funded disinformation lab for allegedly supporting Hindu nationalism. It seems the media only cries censorship when trying to find fault with a non-Western country.