5 Pointers on standoff between Indian Government and Twitter

India's standoff with Twitter escalated on Wednesday after the Indian government expressed 'strong displeasure' about Twitter's response to the emergency order to block more than a thousand accounts for alleged spread of provocative content and misinformation on the farmer protests.

Making it clear that Twitter should block the accounts immediately, the government said that as a business entity working in India, Twitter must respect the Indian laws and follow them irrespective of Twitter's own rules and guidelines. "Lawfully passed orders are binding on any business entity. They must be obeyed immediately. If they are executed days later, it becomes meaningless," the ministry said.

Mentioning last month's violence at US Capitol Hill, the government told Twitter that the 'differential treatment' it provided to India and the US is 'deeply disappointing'.

In a communique late in the evening, the IT ministry said Twitter was told that under the Indian Constitution, freedom of speech is not absolute but is subject to certain restrictions as mentioned in Article 19 (2) of the Constitution of India.

Twitter response in pointers

Twitter had said the government's orders were inconsistent with Indian law.

The microblogging platform also said it would restrict access within India for some accounts instead of an outright ban.

Twitter has suspended over 500 accounts and blocked access to several others within India.

Twitter refused to block accounts of 'news media entities, journalists, activists and politicians' citing the need to uphold freedom of expression.

Twitter issued a public statement that the safety of its employees was a 'top priority', but that the 'tweets must continue to flow'.

Background

Matters took a wrong turn about ten days ago when Twitter blocked over 200 tweets and handles that the Narendra Modi government wanted to be removed from public view. Within hours of doing this though, the social media network surprisingly went on to restore some of the accounts and tweets.

Meanwhile, several ministers and departments of the Union government have started flocking on Koo App - a homemade version of the social networking platform. The microblogging site was co-founded by entrepreneurs Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidwatka.