The
Indian government
has temporarily suspended nearly 177 social media accounts and web links in response to the ongoing farmers’ protest. The
Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology
(Meity) reportedly issued these orders on February 14 and 19. The ministry blocked these accounts and web links following a request from the
Ministry of Home Affairs
(MHA) under
Section 69A
of the IT Act.
According to MHA orders, these accounts and links have been blocked with the aim to maintain law and order. Section 69A of the IT Act gives power to the central government to issue directions for blocking public access to any information through any computer resource. This is the same act under which the government blocked Chinese websites in June 2020.
Elon Musk owned microblogging website X, formerly Twitter, has issued a statement on the accounts blocked on its platform. The company's
Global Government Affairs
account announced that the Indian government had issued an executive order mandating that
X
withhold specific accounts and posts or face penalties such as "significant fines and imprisonment." X further stated that it doesn't agree with the order and is challenging it.
Read what Elon Musk’s X has to say
In a post, the company wrote: “The Indian government has issued executive orders requiring X to act on specific accounts and posts, subject to potential penalties including significant fines and imprisonment.
In compliance with the orders, we will withhold these accounts and posts in India alone; however, we disagree with these actions and maintain that freedom of expression should extend to these posts.
Consistent with our position, a writ appeal challenging the Indian government's blocking orders remains pending. We have also provided the impacted users with notice of these actions in accordance with our policies.
Due to legal restrictions, we are unable to publish the executive orders, but we believe that making them public is essential for transparency. This lack of disclosure can lead to a lack of accountability and arbitrary decision-making.”
English (US) ·