NEW DELHI (CU)_The Indian government is warning US social media companies to comply with the country’s laws, amid an ongoing dispute with Twitter over accounts which the government wanted to suspend.
During his address in Parliament on Thursday (Feb 11), India’s technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and WhatsApp “will have to follow the Constitution of India, [and…] abide by the laws of India”.
The government requested Twitter to suspend more than a thousand accounts and posts, according to Reuters, particularly those accounts which used hashtags with the phrase “farmer genocide,” which, according to the government, is a reference to misinformation about the ongoing farmers’ protests in the capital city of New Delhi.
According to a press release issued by the Indian government, the secretary for the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Ajay Sawhney, virtually met with Twitter’s vice president for global public policy, Monique Meche, and deputy general counsel, Jim Baker, on Wednesday.
The statement noted that the Secretary expressed his disappointment about the manner in which Twitter has “unwillingly, grudgingly and with great delay” complied with the substantial parts of the government’s suspension order.
However, the social media giant claims that it took “a range of enforcement actions”, including the permanent suspension of more than 500 accounts, the withholding of a portion of the accounts identified in the blocking orders under the Country Withheld Content policy, only within India.
Moreover, Twitter noted that accounts of news media entities, journalists, politicians and activists have not been suspended, since removing them would be a violation of the company’s policy as well as the Indian constitution to protect free expression.
