Days after the Ministry of Electronics and IT ordered social media platforms to temporarily block 177 accounts that were linked to farmers' protests, Elon Musk-led X (formerly Twitter) said it has received executive orders to act against some accounts and posts, "subject to potential penalties including significant fines and imprisonment."
However, the X handle of X's Global Government Affairs team in a post shared past midnight stressed that although it would suspend those accounts and posts "in India alone", it disagreed with these actions and that the posts should not be withheld on grounds of freedom of expression.
It also said that they had filed a writ appeal challenging the Indian government's blocking orders.
The post added, "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."
X also stated that it has provided its impacted users with notices of these actions.
The orders issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to temporarily block 177 social media accounts linked to the farmers' protest came on February 14 and 19 at the request of the Ministry of Home Affairs under section 69A of the IT Act.
Links and accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and some other social media platforms have been ordered to be blocked. These accounts can be restored after the farmers' agitation is over, according to PTI's sources.
Farmers from across the country have been protesting to press for their demands, including a legal guarantee for minimum support price (MSP) for crops and farm debt waiver.
Meanwhile, farmer leaders on Wednesday put their march to the national capital on hold for two days after a protester was killed and about 12 police personnel were injured in clashes at one of protest sites on the Punjab-Haryana border.
Twitter doesn't have a choice but to obey local government: Elon Musk
Twitter chief Elon Musk said in June last year that the social media platform has no choice but to follow the local laws in any given country or risk being shut down.
Musk's comments came in response to questions regarding Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey's allegations that the Indian government had threatened the social networking platform with raids if it did not take down critical content during the farmers' protests against the three farm laws.
"Twitter doesn't have a choice but to obey local governments. If we don't obey local government laws then we will get shut down," he had told reporters after meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New York.
Dorsey, who quit as Twitter CEO in 2021, had in an interview claimed that during his tenure as CEO, Twitter received requests from the Indian government to block accounts covering the 2020-2021 farmers' protests and those critical of the government.
"It manifested in ways such as: 'We will shut Twitter down in India', which is a very large market for us; 'We will raid the homes of your employees', which they did; and this is India, a democratic country," Dorsey said.
(With PTI inputs)
