Twitter on Wednesday once again found itself in the cross hairs of the Bharatiya Janata Party as several saffron leaders accused the microblogging website of showing high handedness by ignoring the government’s orders.
The criticism came after Twitter said it would not fully comply with orders from the Narendra Modi government to take down some accounts, saying it was not consistent with Indian law. Instead, the company said it has withhold “a portion” of accounts which the government had directed the microblogging platform to block for allegedly spreading misinformation about the farmers’ protest.
The social media company said that the accounts will continue to be accessible outside India. None of the suspended accounts belonged to journalists, news organisations, activists and politicians, as doing so “would violate their fundamental right to free expression under Indian law”, the company said.
Twitter also noted that internet freedom and liberty of expression were under an increasing threat globally, adding that it would continue to advocate for the right of free expression on people’s behalf.
This irked the government, which said that the company’s statement was “unusual”. In a tweet, Ministry of Electronics and IT said that the company had earlier reached out to the ministry for a meeting. “In this light a blog post published prior to this engagement is unusual,” it said, adding the government will respond soon.
Soon after, tweets from other BJP leaders followed. Party leader from Bengaluru, Tejasvi Surya, said that it seemed that Twitter holds itself above the laws of the Indian government. “It is picking and choosing what law to follow and what not to,” Surya wrote about the microblogging website in a tweet.
The BJP leader urged the Ministry of Electronics and IT to take stringent action against the company.
The party’s National General Secretary BL Santosh, too, posted a tweet reminding Twitter that it had to adhere to the rules, saying that a country is governed based on the Constitution and “not some corporate rules”.
“You state that you are platform,” Santosh added . “Then you decide what to delete and what not. You have to act according to law of land. You can’t have your own rules.”
In the past few days, Union ministers like Ravi Shankar Prasad and Piyush Goyal have also been promoting Koo, a look-alike of Twitter developed by a Bengaluru-based startup, as an alternative.
In fact, the government had first responded to Twitter on Wednesday on Koo. The same post was also tweeted later.
Earlier this month, Twitter temporarily blocked hundreds of accounts, including those of The Caravan magazine and activists. This led to widespread condemnation and subsequently, the company restored access to these accounts, prompting the government to serve it with a non-compliance notice.
The government warned Twitter that it could face action for unilaterally unblocking the accounts and for not following its directives to withhold them. It warned Twitter that there will be consequences of not complying with “directions issued under section 69A of Information Technology Act”.
On February 4, the government sent another list of 1,178 accounts, asking Twitter to block them due to their suspected links to Khalistan sympathisers or Pakistan. The government said these accounts were causing a threat to public order amid the farmers’ protest against agricultural laws.
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