Twitter Restricts Accounts In India To Comply With Government Legal Request (techcrunch.com) 48
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Twitter disclosed on Monday that it blocked four accounts in India to comply with a new legal request from the Indian government. The American social network disclosed on Lumen Database, a Harvard University project, that it took action on four accounts -- including those of hip-hop artist L-Fresh the Lion and singer and song-writer Jazzy B -- to comply with a legal request from the Indian government it received over the weekend. The accounts are geo-restricted within India but accessible from outside of the South Asian nation. (As part of their transparency efforts, some companies including Twitter and Google make requests and orders they receive from governments and other entities public on Lumen Database.)
All four accounts, like several others that the Indian government ordered to be blocked in the country earlier this year, had protested New Delhi's agriculture reforms and some had posted other tweets that criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi's seven years of governance in India, an analysis by TechCrunch found. The new legal request, which hasn't been previously reported, comes at a time when Twitter is making efforts to comply with the Indian government's new IT rules, new guidelines that several of its peers including Facebook and Google have already complied with. On Saturday, India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology had given a "final notice" to Twitter to comply with its new rules, which it unveiled in February this year. The new rules require significant social media firms to appoint and share contact details of representatives tasked with compliance, nodal point of reference and grievance redressals to address on-ground concerns. Last month, police in Delhi visited Twitter offices to "serve a notice" to Twitter's India head. Twitter responded by calling the visit a form of intimidation, and requested the government respect citizens' rights to free speech.
All four accounts, like several others that the Indian government ordered to be blocked in the country earlier this year, had protested New Delhi's agriculture reforms and some had posted other tweets that criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi's seven years of governance in India, an analysis by TechCrunch found. The new legal request, which hasn't been previously reported, comes at a time when Twitter is making efforts to comply with the Indian government's new IT rules, new guidelines that several of its peers including Facebook and Google have already complied with. On Saturday, India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology had given a "final notice" to Twitter to comply with its new rules, which it unveiled in February this year. The new rules require significant social media firms to appoint and share contact details of representatives tasked with compliance, nodal point of reference and grievance redressals to address on-ground concerns. Last month, police in Delhi visited Twitter offices to "serve a notice" to Twitter's India head. Twitter responded by calling the visit a form of intimidation, and requested the government respect citizens' rights to free speech.
India ... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's time we stopped giving them a free pass because they are a "democracy" and started counting them along with Russia, China, et al.
Re: India ... (Score:2)
Do you know how many political parties exist in India? Dozens if not hundreds.
Meanwhile the US has how many? Two.
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Twitter's action in complying with this would be so evil if it were Apple.
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Do you know how many political parties exist in India? Dozens if not hundreds.
Meanwhile the US has how many? Two.
Actually, the US has more than 2, just outside of those 2 the other are irrelevant; in the US because of the way the system elects representatives it's much harder for a small party to get a seat. The US had 11 candidates for President last election, although only 4 were on enough ballots to stand a chance of winning. In India, it's what the BJP, INC and then a raft of smaller ones?
Re: India ... (Score:1)
Itâ(TM)s the same everywhere. Electoral systems tend to concentrate power into just a handful of parties.
The US technically has a lot more parties but also had elections for a lot longer. Same problem in the U.K. despite having dozens of parties only two are important (Tories and Labour). Across Europe you likewise have hundreds of parties but itâ(TM)s always a mainstream Catholic/Protestant vs a mainstream Socialists.
In one end thatâ(TM)s okay because you donâ(TM)t get a looney majority
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Re: India ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole world is sliding towards totalitarianism. China and Russia are further along, but India, Brazil, UK, US, and others are only a few steps behind.
Trying to make a contest where we debate which shipwrecked person will drown first, rather than determine how to rescue any of them.
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Feel free to count us wherever. No one cares. Do you know why? Because there is plenty of opposition in India and it even wins elections and kills workers from Modi's party.
Ok, let me explain this a little: In the US, free speech is a religion - say almost anything and get away with it. In the UK, speech is controlled by liability - if you say something, libel laws are much stricter, but other than that, you are fine. In India, speech is controlled by requirements of public order, sedition, relationships wi
Twitter, championing the right to free speech? (Score:1, Troll)
Out of all the most insane, satirical, flabbergasting, newspeaky, reality-dissociated statements coming out of a dimensional hole to the Twilight Zone, this is in the absolutely highest tiers.
Re:Twitter, championing the right to free speech? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why, because they don't want to carry incitements to violence, or deliberate disinformation about vaccines?
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Why, because they don't want to carry incitements to violence, or deliberate disinformation about vaccines?
No, because they silence one side (the side you hate, apparently) and let the other side trumpet out threats of violence against cops, white people, Jews, Israelis, and more. This is all fact, and anyone with half a brain cell can see there's selective censoring.
This just shows how blind and deaf some of you are, and willfully so, which makes it even more revolting.
Re:Twitter, championing the right to free speech? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why, because they don't want to carry incitements to violence, or deliberate disinformation about vaccines?
Here, I'll reply again so the reply to your screed is formatted properly, because I can't be assed to preview:
No, because they silence one side (the side you hate, apparently) and let the other side trumpet out threats of violence against cops, white people, Jews, Israelis, and more. This is all fact, and anyone with half a brain cell can see there's selective censoring.
This just shows how blind and deaf some of you are, and willfully so, which makes it even more revolting.
Re:Twitter, championing the right to free speech? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why, because they don't want to carry incitements to violence, or deliberate disinformation about vaccines?
This is incomplete list as you intentionally omitted them also suppressing legitimate information. For example, Wuhan lab leak hypothesis was suppressed for more than a year. They are now suppressing reporting on Ivermectin as an effective antiviral prophylactic.
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This hypothesis was not "suppressed", but it was downplayed because the evidence for it was extremely weak while it was being coupled with a highly charged political conspiracy theory. Today though, the evidence is still very weak but it is being investigated as a remote possibility.
Similarly, just because the defense department is making available more docucments about UFOs this does not give credence to the theory that people are being abducted by extraterrestrials.
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Not just that but there's a lot being conflated here. A lot of people were using twitter to share theories about a weaponized variant being intentionally released, which we believe to not be true because there are no signs of Covid having been altered. That doesn't mean it didn't escape from the lab, of course. However, people who claimed it was intentional without evidence are complaining about their tweets being removed. How many of the removed tweets fall into this category?
Same for the Hunter Biden lapt
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Here is latest evidence: Hunter Biden's laptop keeps damning Joe, but most media just ignore it [nypost.com]
The latest, of course, is the photographic evidence that then-Veep Joe attended an April 16, 2015, dinner with shady Ukrainian, Russian and Kazakh businessmen and even posed for photos with the unseemly guests.
Even if you claim without evidence that this is Russian intelli
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As usual, you are spreading fake news sourced from subreddits run by Democratic operatives. Not only Hunter's emails were corroborated to be legitimate by actual people on the chain, he have not denied or sued for defamation. We *know* the data is legitimate, as to actual laptop hardware and how it got there - who cares, it isn't part of the story.
The emails are a nothingburger. How the laptop got there is important.
Even if you claim without evidence that this is Russian intelligence operation, the leaked evidence is itself is verifiably legitimate.
It doesn't prove any crimes were committed... except the fraudulent material released by the GOP.
"After obtaining a copy of the hard drive, DailyMail.com commissioned top cyber forensics experts Maryman & Associates to analyze its data and determine whether the laptop's contents were real."
Ah yes. The Daily Mail. The most reliable source on the internets!
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The emails are a nothingburger.
Really? You think Hunter Biden peddling influence on behalf of his father and getting directly compensated for that is not a big deal?! Do you understand that these emails prove that Biden family is selling Joe's VP and now Presidency position to foreign nationals?
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Don't forget they also suppressed the hunter biden laptop story BEFORE the election
Don't forget the hunter biden laptop story is willfully fraudulent bullshit [reddit.com].
which they admitted a month after the story was true.
The story was made up, supported by a deliberately fraudulent document invented by a fraudulent intelligence firm, and was never true. You are a gullible fool.
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Are you against property rights, you fucking commie?
Amateurs ... (Score:3)
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Ahhh, so YOU are the person running around trolling me
Congrats on forgetting to check post anonymously.
Pop quiz, who's the last person I called a nazi or a fascist?
Side (site?) note: Thanks for removing the stupid worthless nazi filter finally, Slashdot
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that was actually like the 3rd thing ive posted here in a year or so, get over yourself. youre not important enough for me to go through that, i was just stating what i remember about this place...
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that was actually like the 3rd thing ive posted here in a year or so
Sure, on this account. Trolls like you always gonna sockpuppet.
youre not important enough for me to go through that
I'm important enough for you to jump on my dick even though you only posted three things here in a year.
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Lol such self importance. The only other account I’ve ever had was highdude from like 2003 that I lost the login to. But continue to project. I barely have time to post let alone post on multiple accounts. Good attempt though?
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Lol such self importance.
You're the one who showed me how important I am to you, if you have to comment about my opinions with one of your three comments this year. You're letting me live rent-free in your head. Thanks, the working class could use rent relief.
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Pointing out your stupidity is in no way “rent free” and I only thought of it because if your rampant stupidity over the years here.
Court of law? (Score:5, Interesting)
Fuck Twitter (Score:5, Insightful)
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Nigeria then India, whose next to take control? (Score:2)
What is the problem? (Score:1)
Why don't more people look for alternatives to Twitter that the government cannot block? Forget about Twitter, and use something else
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Such as ...?
Assuming a country controls DNS for and all internet connections to the rest of the world, how would it be possible for such an alternative to exist?
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Yes, DNS is another problem we have to circumvent. We have to make the WAN ad hoc. Client/server is too easy for the state to control.
Alternatives to Twitter? Please [alternativeto.net].. you can google for more
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Granted, it's still cat and mouse, but without some office drone's heads to chop off, open source projects are more difficult to block, workarounds are quickly built in and uploaded
Twitter being served its just desserts (Score:3)
The rise of the totalitarian Modi govt is because of sites like Twitter, FB etc giving these right wing elements full sway over their networks while restricting the voices of the opposition, human rights workers etc - Twitter didn't count on these same forces getting big enough to the point where they can exert pressure on these networks.