It is really surprising that some foreign based Apps thinks that they are beyond law in the country where they are operating, and this is truly applicable to Apps like WhatsApp and Twitter, who on pretext of right to speech allow the user of the apps to publish any crap on social media, As they are among the biggest apps in the world market sometimes their behaviour and attitude becomes like “we care two hoots for govt”.
The govt on Wednesday sent a legal notice to micro-blogging site Twitter for reinstating a number of accounts that were supporting the farmers’ protests despite the IT Ministry directive to block these and warning it of consequences “of non-compliance of directions issued under section 69A of the Act. In its notice, the government has said that the “impracticability or the disproportionality of the said measure cannot be decided (by) Twitter which is an intermediary bound by the orders of the Central Government.
According to press reports around 100 Twitter accounts and 150 tweets related to farmers’ protest went off from twitter site on this Monday as the IT ministry directed Twitter to remove these accounts under section 69A of Information Technology (IT) act. However the accounts were unblocked late Monday night. As per Twitter, this followed after discussions with IT officials.
The rules under 69A of the IT Act allow the government to block public access to information from a computer “in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States or public order or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognizable offence relating to above”.
“The direction to block the hashtag ‘#ModiPlanningFarmerGenocide’ … has been found to be instigating people to commit cognizable offences in relations to public order and security of the state. It may be noted that the impracticability or the disproportionality of the said measure cannot be decided (by) Twitter which is an intermediary bound by the orders of the Central govt. It may further be noted that the banning of the said hashtag is accompanied by the content that is attached to the said hashtag by the users using the same. Apart from the fact that the hashtag itself is provocative, the assertion of Twitter in its letter dated 1st Feb 21 that praises, exaggerations, and crude emotional appeals do not constitute inflammatory speech in light of the judgements of the Honourable Supreme Court. As per IT ministry this is meritless in this case as the content attached to the said hashtag had been found to be directly falling under Section 69A of the IT Act. How come Twitter conducting a purported constitutional balancing act in the absence of any legal mandate.
As per IT ministry’s statement “It is reiterated that the blocking committee has confirmed the earlier decision to block the URLs/hashtags. After the hearing was concluded on 1st Feb 21, the interim order continues to remain in operation, but twitter chose not to comply to the mandate of law and the order passed by the competent authority, legally granted with the jurisdiction to pass the same. After this Twitter sent a communication attempting to give justification thereby not only admitting that Twitter had not complied with the order, but also seeking to justify non compliance”.
Among the accounts that were suspended include those of Kisan Ekta Morcha and Bhartiya Kisan Union (Ekta Ugrahan), The Caravan magazine, Prasar Bharti CEO Sashi Shekhar Vempati, AAP MLA Jarnail Singh, CPI(M) leader Md Salim, activist Hansraj Meena, and actor Sushant Singh.
Earlier when the accounts were blocked, Twitter issued a statement “Many countries have laws that may apply to tweets and/or Twitter account content. In our continuing effort to make our services available to people everywhere, if we receive a properly scoped request from an authorised entity, it may be necessary to withhold access to certain content in a particular country from time to time. Transparency is vital to protecting freedom of expression, so we have a notice policy for withheld content. Upon receipt of requests to withhold content, we will promptly notify the affected account holders (unless we are prohibited from doing so e.g. if we receive a court order under seal). We disclose these requests in our biannual Twitter Transparency Report.”
So after few hours, what made the Twitter to restore the blocked accounts.
As per the IT ministry, “hashtag #ModiPlanningFarmerGenocide has been found to be instigating people to commit cognizable offences in relation to public order and national security. The banning order had attachments mentioning the users name etc. Apart from the name of hashtag itself is provocative. The contention of Twitter in its letter dated 1st Feb 21 that praises, exaggerations, and crude emotional appeals do not constitute inflammatory speech in light of the judgements of the SC is meritless, as the content attached to the said hashtag had been found to be directly falling afoul of Section 69A of the IT Act. In this regard, it is necessary to point out to the stated irrationality of Twitter conducting a purported constitutional balancing act in the absence of any legal mandate.”
I do not know whether the said accounts are still in operation or Twitter has blocked them again. But with this episode one thing has come out in open that Twitter has used their high headedness in this matter, as Twitter can not provide their platform for spreading lawlessness, inciting violence and other illegal activities.
Friends you might remember that Indian govt banned many Chinese apps after the onset of Covid 19, and Chinese govt could not do any thing, and they never gave any assurances to the Chinese owner of these apps. Every country’s govt has the right to ban the contents on any media or social media, if the content is found to be inflammatory, instigating people to resort to violence etc..
Awaiting for your views and comments.
Anil Malik
Mumbai, India
4th February 2021