June, Twitter I received an ultimatum from the Government of India to remove about 39 accounts and content from the platform. Sources familiar with the order said that if Twitter refuses to comply, its chief compliance officer may face criminal proceedings. The company also states that it will lose its “safe harbor” protection. This means that you are no longer protected from liability for content created by your users. This is an escalation of a series of “block orders” or content deletion orders sent by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology of India. Increased has Significantly in the last 18 months.
Last week, Twitter replied: How the Indian government goes to court.
The controversy itself deals only with specific accounts and content, but experts have a big impact on WIRED, and the consequences could act as “the bell of this ongoing battle for Internet freedom.” I said there is. At Freedom House.
The Twitter proceedings specifically focus on Section 69A of Indian Information Technology Law. A law passed in 2000 allows the government to issue blocking orders and requires an intermediary (in this case Twitter) to remove content that the government considers to be a risk to India’s security or sovereignty. doing. The submission to the court has not yet been published, but sources familiar with the submission claim that the government’s demands are excessive and sometimes cover the entire account.
Jason Pierre Meyer, executive director of the Global Network Initiative, said the Twitter proceedings are affecting beyond social media platforms. “It will resonate with all intermediaries,” he said. “Intermediaries as defined by Indian law include mobile network operators as well as ISPs, so they really apply to anyone who could be considered a chokepoint for content restrictions and censorship. If Twitter loses in court, it could open the door for governments to censor the entire website and media on streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, making it difficult for platforms and companies to boost. I have.
“Around 2010 or 2011, the government developed these early rules of power,” said Raman Jit Singh Chima, Senior International Advisor and Director of Asia-Pacific Policy at AccessNow. With these new additions to the 2009 law, the platform will no longer be able to publicly disclose the block orders it receives. “Even then, there was a lot of criticism that the rules gave all the power to the government.” The Twitter proceedings were not aimed at challenging the constitutionality of 69A, but instead partly. Claims that the block order does not meet government-specific standards for establishing why content needs to be removed, and that such order violates the user’s right to freedom of speech. I am.
Indian IT law allows the government to secretly issue block orders so that individual users can understand why content is being censored or try to overturn government decisions. Is especially difficult. In 2018, the government issued a block order for the satirical website www.dowrycalculator.com, owned by journalist Tanul Takul. This website was not informed of why the site was blocked and started a court battle. The government claimed that the Thakur site promoted dowry. Dowry is illegal in India, but it still exists in many places. In 2018, Takul told Outlook India that the site was intended to point out this “prominent social evil.”
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