{"id":629258,"date":"2023-04-14T19:49:34","date_gmt":"2023-04-15T00:49:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/14\/free-speech-warrior-elon-musks-twitter-is-muting-indian-voices-worldwide\/"},"modified":"2023-04-14T19:49:34","modified_gmt":"2023-04-15T00:49:34","slug":"free-speech-warrior-elon-musks-twitter-is-muting-indian-voices-worldwide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/14\/free-speech-warrior-elon-musks-twitter-is-muting-indian-voices-worldwide\/","title":{"rendered":"Free speech warrior Elon Musk’s Twitter is muting Indian voices worldwide"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Twitter is once again embroiled in a free-speech debate over repressing Indian voices on the global platform.<\/p>\n

Last week, Twitter withheld tweets by an Indian journalist Saurav Das, dating back to November 2022. These tweets were blocked worldwide \u201cin response to a legal demand,\u201d Twitter claimed. In the censored tweets, Das had merely quoted remarks that Amit Shah, India\u2019s home minister, had made about the judiciary.<\/p>\n

Das does not remember the exact context of the tweet, according to a report in the daily newspaper The Hindu<\/a><\/span>. Twitter did not inform him about the action, he added. Dissatisfied with a sketchy response to his right to information (RTI) plea seeking reasons, he is considering legal action against Twitter.<\/p>\n

The global ban on Das\u2019 tweets are particularly significant because Twitter usually responds to government or court demands to withold tweets by restricting them only within the territory where such laws apply. This new move is also further<\/a><\/span> contradiction<\/a><\/span> of Elon Musk\u2019s high-minded championing of freedom of expression on Twitter. When he bought the company, Musk hailed it as a \u201cdigital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner.\u201d<\/p>\n

India, home to the world\u2019s second-largest internet population, is a key overseas market for Twitter and many other US technology firms, all of which are eager to comply with government demands so that they can remain in the country. Twitter has frequently suspended accounts and posts<\/a><\/span> in the past; as recently as January when the platform blocked links to a BBC documentary<\/a><\/span> that was critical of prime minister Narendra Modi.<\/p>\n

<\/a>India\u2019s freedom of expression is eroding<\/h2>\n

Over the past few years, India has witnessed numerous attempts to stifle press freedom<\/a><\/span> and free speech, ranging from the arrest of journalists<\/a><\/span>, amendments to the RTI Act<\/a><\/span>, and the establishment of a government-run fact-checking unit<\/a><\/span> to \u201cverify\u201d government-related content on social media. <\/p>\n

India\u2019s RTI Act\u2014a law akin to the US\u2019 Freedom of Information Act, allowing citizens to access government records\u2014is also under threat, due to a 2022 bill. If it is passed by India\u2019s parliament, it will allow the government to deny information to the people in the name of privacy, experts have pointed out.<\/p>\n

Since 2014, when Modi became prime minister of India, the country has slipped on the World Press Freedom Index<\/a><\/span>. From 140 out of 180 countries in 2014, it slid to 150 last year.<\/p>\n

<\/a>What does Musk think about India\u2019s free speech rules <\/h2>\n

Twitter was the focus of Indian government attention long before Musk bought the company. In 2021, for instance, the Delhi police, controlled by Modi\u2019s government, raided Twitter\u2019s offices after the platform labelled a tweet by a spokesperson of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party as \u201cmanipulated media.\u201d<\/p>\n

The tweet had claimed that the Congress, India\u2019s leading opposition party, was using a \u201ctoolkit\u201d to debunk the government\u2019s efforts against the Covid-19 pandemic. <\/p>\n

Under Musk, though, Twitter has increasingly complied with the Indian government\u2019s requests to block content. On Apr. 12, in an interview with the BBC<\/a><\/span>, Musk admitted that Twitter often censors content in India to comply with the country\u2019s \u201cextremely strict\u201d social media rules.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we have a choice of either our people go to prison or we comply with the laws, we\u2019ll comply with the laws,\u201d Musk said. \u201cWe can\u2019t go beyond the laws of a country.\u201d Twitter cannot offer the same protections of speech to Indian users that it does in the US and other Western countries, Musk added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Mimansa Verma<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twitter is once again embroiled in a free-speech debate over repressing Indian voices on the global platform.Last week, Twitter withheld tweets by an Indian journalist Saurav Das, dating back to November 2022. These tweets were blocked worldwide \u201cin response to a legal demand,\u201d Twitter claimed. In the censored tweets, Das had merely quoted remarks that<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":629259,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4664,29493],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-629258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-speech","category-warrior"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}