Those who’ve been following the news even casually will be aware that for some months now, India has been experiencing protests from farmers, demanding the withdrawal of new agriculture laws that they say benefit private buyers at the expense of growers. As you read this, tens of thousands of farmers are still camped outside the capital of New Delhi, and there does not appear any end to the impasse.
These protests against the government have gained the attention of a variety of public figures internationally, from teen climate activist Greta Thunberg, to bestselling pop artist Rihanna and even the adult film actress Mia Khalifa, who all used Twitter to voice their support. And while most of these celebrities are somewhat out of the reach of Indian authorities – although Delhi Police did file a report against the creators of a “toolkit” on the protest shared by Thunberg – it is Twitter itself that is facing the heat for providing a platform for hundreds of accounts targeted by the government.
According to Reuters, New Delhi contacted Twitter last week, asking for the U.S. tech giant to ditch specific accounts, saying they were backed by Pakistan or operated by sympathizers of Sikh separatists. India’s security agencies suggested some accounts were being operated from outside the country. After initially blocking accounts, Twitter refused to comply with a government directive to block more than 250 accounts and posts, Reuters reports, and is currently seeking talks with India’s technology minister over the potential removal of 1,178 accounts.
The developments now raise questions over the legality of the government’s demands, and, more broadly speaking, the limits of free speech, as well as the liability of a social media platform for accounts that it hosts. Twitter is accused of falling foul of the 69A of the Information Technology Act, which allows the central government to block access to information generated, transmitted, received, stored or hosted in any computer resource if it believes the content impacts the security, defence, sovereignty and integrity of India.
Avimukt Dar, a partner at IndusLaw, says the country is in an interesting position at the moment. “India’s Constitution and Constitutional courts - unlike say those of the United States -have eschewed absolutism in freedom of speech and balanced this freedom with the need to ‘keep it together,’” he notes. “The state’s monopoly on power is not as strong here as it is in advanced economies, nor do we enjoy the margin of safety from external and internal aggression that they do. Therefore, the Indian state has always deemed it necessary to have ‘reasonable restrictions’ on fundamental rights inter alia in the interest of sovereignty, integrity and security.”
The Twitter tensions have led to many revisiting the 2015 Shreya Singhal case, in which a young law student was responsible for scrapping Section 66A of the Information Technology Act that allowed police to arrest people for social media comments. At the time, the court drew a distinction between “advocacy” and “incitement,” when it comes to sedition charges.
Dar says the government is “generally cognisant of the need to maintain a certain degree of platform immunity and as such platforms are only liable for non-compliance of lawful orders.”
“From media reports, it appears that the government gave a specific list of usernames that were using specific hashtags that indicated that the government of India was planning a ‘farmer genocide’ or were spreading misinformation that could trigger violence by precipitating the ongoing ‘non-violent’ farmer protests,” Dar says, noting this may allow the government to defend itself “on grounds of reasonableness.”
But the “increasing frequency with which Section 69A is being used (including takedowns of accounts as well as specific posts) does not augur well and may invite judicial scrutiny on the basis of a ‘slippery slope’ being created,” Dar adds.
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