On May 25, the Delhi Police raided Twitter India’s offices in the city. The raid was occasioned by Twitter marking a toolkit shared by Bha...
On May 25, the Delhi Police raided Twitter India’s offices in the city. The raid was occasioned by Twitter marking a toolkit shared by Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Sambit Patra as “manipulated media”. There seems to be little doubt the documents were faked. The message from the BJP government was loud and clear: criticise Prime Minister Modi or his government at your own peril.
The targeting of Twitter was one more salvo from the government in a turbulent phase of the evolving relationship between US Big Tech and the government of India. In recent months, tech platforms like Twitter and Facebook have resisted the Indian government’s diktats about banning accounts, like that of actor Kangana Ranaut, for inflammatory remarks and have been more proactive in calling out fake news and disinformation by Modi government officials, like their IT cell head, Amit Malviya.
In response, high-ranked executives from Twitter and Facebook, based in the U.S., have rushed down to mollify the Modi government which has wrangled a quid pro quo from the companies for each instance of perceived loss of face.
Deplatforming Trump
Though it may be tempting to read the raid on Twitter and India’s new internet laws as a battle between an overbearing authoritarian government...
