India has chided Twitter for not complying with its orders to remove certain accounts and content, warning the social media platform that it « must respect » Indian laws « irrespective of Twitter’s own rules and guidelines. »
February 11, 2021 India has chided Twitter for not complying with its orders to remove certain accounts and content, warning the social media platform that it « must respect » Indian laws « irrespective of Twitter’s own rules and guidelines. » « We value freedom and we value criticism because it is part of our democracy. But freedom of expression is not absolute and it is subject to reasonable restrictions » as mentioned in the constitution, India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said in a statement late Wednesday. Twitter has found itself in a standoff with the government after it refused to fully comply with last week’s government order to remove some accounts, including those of news organizations, journalists, activists and politicians, citing its « principles of defending protected speech and freedom of expression. » The government said the accounts—unspecified in number—were using provocative hashtags to spread misinformation about the massive farmer protests that have rattled Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration.
