As India reports a devastatingly high surge in COVID cases in the country, the healthcare infrastructure is failing, which has led to many people to flock to social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to not just share information about resources but also criticize the ruling party. This has not gone down well with the government, which sent out an order to Twitter to take down several tweets that were critical about its handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Twitter, which has faced similar requests and threats in the past, complied.
While COVID 19 cases around the world have been going down, India is reporting an unprecedented surge unlike anything we have seen before. With more than 3lakh (300,000) new cases a day, India’s healthcare infrastructure is struggling, with governments around the country facing an oxygen crisis. At a time like this, people have taken to twitter to complain about the government’s handling of the disaster, which has led the government to take some measures.
The ruling regime wrote to Twitter in an attempt to get several tweets deleted from its platform. The social media giant, in accordance, removed/restricted access to over 50 tweets flagged by the Central government. Most of the removed tweets were criticisms on the way the Narendra Modi administration is tackling the COVID-19 situation in the country and harped on issues like shortage of medicine, beds, mass cremations, and the gatherings at Kumbh Mela which showed blatant disregard for safety guidelines. The blocked tweets will continue to remain visible outside the country.
Among the verified accounts whose tweets were removed were Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera, MP Revanth Reddy, West Bengal minister Moloy Ghatak, ABP News editor Pankaj Jha, actor Vineet Kumar Singh, film-maker Avinash Das and film-maker and former journalist Vinod Kapri.
Twitter had earlier locked horns with the government when it had initially refused to remove tweets about farmer protests, saying that it reviews each takedown reports from the government “as expeditiously as possible”, and takes appropriate action in line with the fundamental values of the company and its “commitment to protecting the public conversation”. Social media is supposed to be a platform where one can air one’s opinions; if the government poses restrictions on social media as well, does it not stand contrary to the fundamental right of freedom of speech and expression? But I digress.
“When we receive a valid legal request, we review it under both Twitter rules and local law. If the content violates Twitter’s Rules, the content will be removed from the service. If it is determined to be illegal in a particular jurisdiction, but not in violation of Twitter rules, we may withhold access to the content in India only. In all cases, we notify the account holder directly so that they are aware that we have received a legal order pertaining to the account,” a Twitter spokesperson said.
According to Twitter, if a tweet is to be removed, it must advance a claim of fact, expressed in definitive terms, demonstrably false or misleading, based on widely available, authoritative sources, and likely to impact public safety or cause serious harm. And in these troubling times, misinformation can have serious consequences.
Twitter has put up the order received by the government on the Lumen database, a project of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University that collects and analyzes requests to remove material from the web.
