As India struggles with a catastrophic outbreak of COVID-19, the Indian government has pressured Twitter to take down dozens of tweets, that were critical of India’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak.
Cases of COVID-19 have again hit a new world record.
However Twitter has now confirmed it withheld some of the tweets after the legal request by the Indian government.
In the government’s legal request, 21 tweets were mentioned. Among them were tweets from a lawmaker and a filmmaker named Avinash Das.
The law cited in the government’s request was the Information Technology Act, 2000.
“When we receive a valid legal request, we review it under both the Twitter Rules and local law,” the Twitter spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.
Twitter has complied with govt requests to censor 52 tweets largely critical of India’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Affected accounts include MP Revanth Reddy, WB minister Moloy Ghatak, actor Vineet Kumar Singh, among others.https://t.co/qQJBIHgQk6
— Nikhil Pahwa (@nixxin) April 24, 2021
“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 the Twitter Rules, we may withhold access to the content in India only,” she said.
The spokeswoman confirmed that Twitter had notified account holders directly about withholding their content..
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