The Washington Post Explains How India Tamed Twitter

The Washington Post reported that the Indian government has dramatically tightened its grip on American social media companies. Silicon Valley firms that were at times defiant are now far more accepting of the Indian government dictates to censor material, in particular criticism of PM Modi and his right-wing BJP. For years, a committee of executives from US technology companies and Indian officials convened every two weeks in a government office to negotiate what could and could not be said on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. At these 69A meetings – reference to section in Indian Information Technology Act, 2000 – officials from India’s information, technology, security and intelligence agencies presented social media posts they wanted removed. The tech representatives sometimes pushed back in the name of free speech. Twitter resisted the most. But two years ago, these interactions took a fateful turn. Where officials had once asked for a handful of tweets to be removed at each meeting, they now insisted that entire accounts be taken down, and numbers were running in the hundreds. Executives who refused the government’s demands could now be jailed; their companies expelled from the Indian market. This escalating censorship in the world’s largest democracy is part of a wider campaign by Modi and his Hindu nationalist allies to monopolize public discourse: tightening their grip on power, advancing their Hindu-first ideology and stamping out critical and dissenting voices. American technology companies have increasingly fallen in line, fearing for their employees’ security and their profits. This is how in March 2023 (See SDW, Vol. 1, Issue 6), once the Amritpal manhunt began, over 100 Twitter handles from Panjab were quickly closed.