When minister Jitendra Singh spoke of intellectual terrorism, he seemed to be taking Facebook's cue

Jitendra Singh, minister of state at the Prime Minister’s Office, has discovered a new threat that emanates from the Kashmir issue: “intellectual terrorism”. Speaking in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, Singh observed that the Parliamentary resolution passed in 1994 had already decided that Kashmir was an “integral part of India”, yet “old issues” were dug up to suit certain agendas.

The contours of what constituted “intellectual terrorism” were not very clear. The phrase predates Singh's speech. It appeared in news reports dating back to December 2001, in the aftermath of the Parliament attack and the arrest of Delhi University professor SAR Gilani on charges of being involved. A report in a Hindi newspaper had then cited investigation agencies, which said Gilani had confessed that he was recruited by Jaish-e-Mohammad to spread "bauddhik aatankwad" or intellectual terrorism. Gilani was later acquitted of all charges.

In his speech on Wednesday, Singh went on to speak against “anti-India activism” and the apparent gains of “anti-India intellectualism”. “If you raise a question over India, you become famous and your book sells,” he said. Going by Singh’s description, there is very little to distinguish intellectual terrorism from political dissent.

It is a confusion that has played out in the online world, of late. Over the past month, since protests broke out in Kashmir after Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani was killed in an encounter with security forces, a number of Facebook users have complained of censorship. These individuals include filmmakers, academics and journalists who had posted on Kashmir. While some said their profiles were suddenly blocked, others said their posts and comments disappeared from their social media site.

'Dangerous organisations'

When contacted by Scroll.in, Facebook did not deny that certain profiles and posts had been blocked. “Our Community Standards prohibit content that praises or supports terrorists, terrorist organisations or terrorism, and we remove it as soon as we’re made aware of it,” said a spokesperson for Facebook. “We welcome discussion on these subjects, but any terrorist content has to be clearly put in a context which condemns these organisations or their violent activities.”

Facebook’s guidelines on “Community Standards” includes a section on “dangerous organisations” that are not permitted a presence on the social media website. These include groups involved in “terrorist activity” or “organised criminal activity”. Content expressing support for such groups and violent behaviour will also be removed, the guidelines say.

It is not clear, however, that the individuals and content removed from the site met these criteria.

Blocked profiles

Among those who had their profiles temporarily blocked was Sanjay Kak, a documentary film maker based in Delhi. “It was ‘deactivated’ on July 26 around 1 pm, and I responded by uploading a copy of my drivers licence around 3 pm the same day, which had my name, picture, date of birth,” said Kak. “It remained down for at least 24 hours, and after two reminders, they wrote back saying that they ‘could not use it to confirm your identity’ and could I please send them some other identity card, with my name, picture, date of birth.”

But by the time he got around to uploading fresh identity proof, Kak found that his account had already been unfrozen. They had not waited for the new details. Kak feels he was targeted for media stories that mentioned his name.

The filmmaker has previously featured in the news for his documentary, “Jashn-e-Azadi: How We Celebrate Freedom”, which speaks about human rights abuses, unmarked graves and pro-freedom demonstrations in Kashmir. His posts, in the days leading up to July 26, consisted mainly of links to articles published in various news outlets, such as the Deccan Herald, The Times of India and The Telegraph. They include pieces written by people such as author Shobhaa De, historian Partha Chatterjee and anthropologist Mona Bhan. These are interspersed by a link to his documentary and an event on state repression that was to be held at the Gandhi Peace Foundation.

A number of profiles that were blocked on the same day are associated with a Facebook group called the Kashmir Solidarity Network, which posts about human rights violations in the region. “We had created it during the summer of 2010 when a similar communication blockade by the government had made it hard for Kashmiris to tell their version of the events,” said Muhammad Junaid, who is a doctoral candidate in cultural anthropology at City University New York and one of the administrators of the group.

Said Arif Ayaz Parrey, who is from Anantnag in South Kashmir and works with an environment NGO in Delhi: “I was chatting on Facebook messenger with a friend when I was suddenly logged out. When I tried to log back in, it said my account had been disabled. They restored my account in about an hour, saying that a page I'm one of the administrators of, Kashmir Solidarity Network, had been removed. I checked and found that all the other administrators of the page had their accounts blocked as well.”

The page, along with the profiles of its administrators, has since been restored, but many are still mystified about why they were targeted. “At this stage, I don't know why Facebook had specifically blocked me, said Junaid. “I had not posted much on recent events in Kashmir, since there was no Internet connection in Kashmir where I was based at the time.”

Junaid believes it might have been because of a recent piece he had written for Raiot.in, on the politics of images surrounding Burhan Wani's killing. “Raiot.in is a secular progressive space, and my pieces there are shared and read mostly by Leftist, Dalit and other progressive activists and readers. To use the label of ‘terrorism’ is sinister and puts a chilling effect on free speech campaigns,” he added.

Content removed

Some feel that specific content was targeted. Parrey, for instance, says that he was banned from posting or commenting on Facebook for 24 hours after he had posted an article by the Kashmir Reader. The report speaks of a new poster released by members of the Hizbul Mujahideen and modelled on an old picture of Burhan Wani and his cohort, circulated widely on social media. The article was removed twice from Parrey’s wall. When he later embedded the text of the story on his wall, however, it was allowed to remain.

Nawaz Gul Qanungo, a journalist based in Srinagar, said he suddenly “got the feeling that chunks of my wall were just disappearing”. News stories he had posted went missing, his inbox suddenly disappeared and comments he had posted on other links were suddenly being “faded out”. Voices that “question the establishment”, he feels, are being stamped out.

The community

When asked whether it was acting of its own accord when removing the content and profiles, Facebook did not respond directly. However, the social media network is known to act on complaints from users who form part of its 1.6 billion strong “community”. There are Facebook teams across the globe to monitor and act on these complaints. According to the company’s policy, complaints that are believed to be related to safety are prioritised. Lists produced by governments, academic research organisations and international organisations are consulted when identifying "dangerous organisations".

The social network also receives and acts on requests by law-enforcement agencies. In the United States, for instance, it recently gave rise to a controversy after it deactivated the account of Korryn Gaines, a 23-year-old black woman, on the request of the Baltimore County Police. Gaines, who was livestreaming her five-hour stand-off with the police, was killed at the end of the encounter.