{"id":3168,"date":"2022-08-02T14:13:18","date_gmt":"2022-08-02T08:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/?p=3168"},"modified":"2022-08-02T14:13:18","modified_gmt":"2022-08-02T08:13:18","slug":"twitter-to-whatsapp-social-media-companies-standing-up-to-indian-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/tech\/2022\/08\/02\/news\/3168\/","title":{"rendered":"Twitter to WhatsApp: Social media companies standing up to Indian government"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Twitter offices in New Delhi were raided by the police in an act denounced as \u201cintimidatory\u201d by the US company. (Shutterstock\/File)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LONDON, Broadcasting News Corporation : Twitter and WhatsApp are pushing back against the Indian government\u2019s request to remove content and weaken encryption in a move that could see Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s government further tighten its grip on media freedom in the country, experts claim. \u201cThe Modi government\u2019s tactic of trying to stamp out encrypted messaging and social media posts under the guise of public safety and lawfulness could spread elsewhere,\u201d said Daphne Keller, director of the Program on Platform Regulation at Stanford\u2019s Cyber Policy Center. \u201cWe should consider it a canary in the coal mine for other faltering democracies, including our own,\u201d she added. The number of internet users in India has grown dramatically in the last few years, sparking the government\u2019s concerns about disinformation, hate speech and other dangers online. However, critics say the recent moves are simply a cover for cracking down on free speech and dissent. Over the last few years, New Delhi has introduced a series of regulations and laws to curb freedom of speech, including new information technology rules that \u201crequired any large social media firm to appoint chief compliance officer, nodal contact person and resident grievance officer in the country to address local concerns.\u201d \u201cOfficial regulations are increasingly beside the point. The government doesn\u2019t follow its own rules,\u201d says Raman Jit Singh Chima, Asia policy director for the civil rights group Access Now. \u201cThe government doesn\u2019t follow due process. The system is rotten to the core.\u201d In July, Twitter announced it filed a lawsuit against the Indian government, accusing it of abusing its power \u201cby ordering it to arbitrarily and disproportionately remove several tweets from its platform.\u201d \u201cBlocking of such information is a violation of the freedom of speech guaranteed to citizen-users of the platform. Further, the content at issue does not have any apparent proximate relationship to the grounds under Section 69A,\u201d Twitter argued in a statement. Twitter offices in New Delhi were subsequently raided by the police in an act denounced as \u201cintimidatory\u201d by the US company.
\nTwitter is not the only tech giant to have confronted the Indian government. Last year, WhatsApp sued New Delhi, challenging new regulations that \u201ccould allow authorities to make people\u2019s private messages \u2018traceable,\u2019 and conduct mass surveillance.\u201d Because of its growing internet base, US social media giants see India as a critical market, but due to the current climate, they have encountered increased difficulties. However, it seems clear that companies have no intention of standing by and obeying the government\u2019s orders and have started putting up some resistance. News collected from ARAB NEWS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LONDON, Broadcasting News Corporation : Twitter and WhatsApp are pushing back against the Indian government\u2019s request to remove content and weaken encryption in a move that could see Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s government further tighten its grip on media freedom in the country, experts claim. \u201cThe Modi government\u2019s tactic of trying to stamp out encrypted …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3168"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3170,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3168\/revisions\/3170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}