{"id":5129,"date":"2021-05-06T15:15:40","date_gmt":"2021-05-06T15:15:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=5129"},"modified":"2021-05-06T15:15:40","modified_gmt":"2021-05-06T15:15:40","slug":"a-major-battle-over-free-speech-on-social-media-is-playing-out-in-india-during-the-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=5129","title":{"rendered":"A major battle over free speech on social media is playing out in India during the pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“As the coronavirus pandemic rages in India<\/a>, claiming thousands of lives, many Indians are turning to social media to demand that the government handle the public health crisis better. And now, the government is silencing these critics in its latest threat to the future of free speech on the internet in the world\u2019s second-most populous country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In recent weeks, the Indian government has requested that companies like Twitter take down content<\/a> that it says contains misinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic. But critics say that India\u2019s political leadership under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is using the premise of misinformation to overreach and suppress criticism of the administration\u2019s handling of the pandemic.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“under the Modi administration of the past several years, the country has expanded its internet regulation laws<\/a>, giving it more power to censor and surveil its citizens online. The government has several levers to pressure US-based tech companies into compliance: It could arrest Facebook and Twitter staff in India if their employers don\u2019t follow orders. Even further, India could yank Twitter or Facebook off the local internet in India entirely, as it recently did with TikTok and several major Chinese apps<\/a> in June. And the government resorted to effectively shutting down the internet in Kashmir<\/a> in February 2020 when it wanted to quiet political dissent in the region.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Facebook confirmed that it temporarily blocked posts with a #ResignModi<\/a> hashtag in India, but it later said it was a mistake because of content associated with the hashtag that violated its policies. Facebook has since restored access to the hashtag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Facebook declined to comment on how many or what takedown requests it has received from the Indian government in recent weeks. A source familiar with the company said Facebook only took down a small portion of the total requests it received.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Recode reviewed the more than 50 tweets<\/a> that Twitter blocked or deleted at the request of the Indian government in recent weeks. While some could be considered misleading \u2014 including one viral image showing devastationin India supposedly related to the pandemic which Indian fact-checker AltNews reported to be outdated<\/a> \u2014 it wasn\u2019t clear what was misleading about several other posts, which appeared to be straightforward news and political commentary.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/recode\/22410931\/india-pandemic-facebook-twitter-free-speech-modi-covid-19-censorship-free-speech-takedown<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“As the coronavirus pandemic rages in India, claiming thousands of lives, many Indians are turning to social media to demand that the government handle the public health crisis better. And now, the government is silencing these critics in its latest threat to the future of free speech on the internet in the world\u2019s second-most populous country.<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, the Indian government has requested that companies like Twitter take down content that it says contains misinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic. But critics say that India\u2019s political leadership under Prime Minister Narendra Modi is using the premise of misinformation to overreach and suppress criticism of the administration\u2019s handling of the pandemic.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“under the Modi administration of the past several years, the country has expanded its internet regulation laws, giving it more power to censor and surveil its citizens online. The government has several levers to pressure US-based tech companies into compliance: It could arrest Facebook and Twitter staff in India if their employers don\u2019t follow orders. Even further, India could yank Twitter or Facebook off the local internet in India entirely, as it recently did with TikTok and several major Chinese apps in June. And the government resorted to effectively shutting down the internet in Kashmir in February 2020 when it wanted to quiet political dissent in the region.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Facebook confirmed that it temporarily blocked posts with a #ResignModi hashtag in India, but it later said it was a mistake because of content associated with the hashtag that violated its policies. Facebook has since restored access to the hashtag.<\/p>\n

Facebook declined to comment on how many or what takedown requests it has received from the Indian government in recent weeks. A source familiar with the company said Facebook only took down a small portion of the total requests it received.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“Recode reviewed the more than 50 tweets that Twitter blocked or deleted at the request of the Indian government in recent weeks. While some could be considered misleading \u2014 including one viral image showing devastation in India supposedly related to the pandemic which Indian fact-checker AltNews reported to be outdated \u2014 it wasn\u2019t clear what was misleading about several other posts, which appeared to be straightforward news and political commentary.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[588,409,483,761,875,83,494,328,327],"class_list":["post-5129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-corona","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-facebook","tag-free-speech","tag-india","tag-modi","tag-social-media","tag-twitter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5129"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5130,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5129\/revisions\/5130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}