Unfortunately, it would appear the government doesn’t want those comments to be seen.
India Sends Twitter an Emergency Order to Delete Tweets
In a story broken by Indian tech news site MediaNama, Twitter has removed 52 tweets at the request of the Government of India. Most of the tweets in question were criticisms of how the government is currently handling India’s second wave of COVID-19 cases.
Some of the tweet authors include the likes of parliament member Revanth Reddy, West Bengal state minister Moloy Ghatak, actor Vineet Kumar Singh, and filmmakers Vinod Kapri and Avinash Das.
A Twitter spokesperson has said that when the company receives a valid legal request, it gets reviewed under both the Twitter Rules and local law.
If the content violates the Twitter Rules, it is removed from the platform. If the content does not violate the Twitter Rules but is deemed illegal by the local law, access to the content may be withheld in that area only.
“In all cases, we notify the account holder directly so they’re aware that we’ve received a legal order pertaining to the account,” the spokesperson continued.
And that does seem to be true. A Twitter user by the name of Pieter Friedrich (@FrieidrichPieter) shared a screenshot of the email he received after sharing his negative opinion of the current regime of prime minister Narendra Modi.
Twitter explained that it received official correspondence from the Indian government claiming that his tweet was “in violation of India’s Information Technology Act, 2000.” The tweet can still be viewed at the time of writing, but Twitter warns that the service may be obligated to take action in the future.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time that Twitter has bent to the will of the Government of India. Recently, the platform suspended 250 accounts.
