Despite the potential for Twitter employees to face imprisonment, the social media platform has not complied with an Indian government notice that calls for it to remove the verified accounts of various journalists, activists, and politicians.
Twitter has called out the Indian government for attempting to block online dissent, labelling the government’s conduct as a potential threat to freedom of expression. In criticising the Indian government, the social media platform said it was concerned by the government’s “intimidation tactics” of using police to raid Twitter’s office. “We, alongside many in civil society in India and around the world, have concerns with regards to the use of intimidation tactics by the police in response to enforcement of our global terms of service, as well as with core elements of the new IT Rules,” Twitter told ZDNet. Twitter’s statement comes in response to a non-compliance notice that was issued against the social media platform in January requesting for certain content and accounts to be removed. With the January notice, Twitter has not taken any action as it believes the blocks requested by the Indian government would result in speech and freedom of expression being violated. According to Twitter, the notice called for the accounts of various news media entities, journalists, activists, and politicians to be blocked.
