New Delhi: X announced on Thursday (May 8) that the Union government has ordered it to block no less than 8,000 accounts on its platform in India and that despite its disagreement with these orders, it has begun complying with them.
It also noted that the government’s orders come with potential penalties for itself such as “significant fines and imprisonment of the company’s local employees”.
The Elon Musk-run platform’s announcement comes as some journalists and news organisations had their X accounts withheld in India in response to the government’s legal demands.
In most of the over 8,000 blocking orders the government issued, it “has not specified which posts from an account have violated India’s local laws”, X’s Global Government Affairs department posted. It added: “For a significant number of accounts, we did not receive any evidence or justification to block the accounts.”
“We disagree with the Indian government’s demands,” X said, even as it noted that it will withhold the accounts concerned in India in order to comply with the orders.
“Blocking entire accounts is not only unnecessary, it amounts to censorship of existing and future content, and is contrary to the fundamental right of free speech,” it said. “This is not an easy decision, however keeping the platform accessible in India is vital to Indians’ ability to access information.”
While it believes that making the government’s blocking orders public is necessary in the interests of transparency, X said it is unable to make the Modi government’s orders public due to “legal restrictions”.
The company, which said it is exploring legal recourse, also advised “all users who are impacted by these blocking orders to seek appropriate relief from the courts” and went on to provide websites of legal aid organisations in India.
Later, the Global Government Affairs account of X was also among the accounts which were withheld in India. However, subsequently the account was seemingly unblocked but the post pertaining to the blocking orders received from the Indian government was not visible in India.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.
