Musk's X ‘Disagrees’ Government Directive To Suspend Certain Accounts Linked To Farmers' Protest

Elon Musk-owned microblogging platform X, formerly known as Twitter, stated that it had received directives from the Indian government, leading to its global government affairs team expressing disagreement. The team argued that complying with these directives to withhold certain accounts and posts could potentially violate freedom of expression rights.

In a statement posted at 1:04 am, X disclosed the government's orders, highlighting its commitment to transparency. However, due to legal constraints, the platform could not disclose the exact nature of the executive orders. "In compliance with the orders, we will withhold these accounts and posts in India alone; however, we disagree with these actions and maintain that freedom of expression should extend to these posts," X stated.

According to the statement, the government's directives required X to take action against specific accounts and posts, under the threat of significant penalties such as fines and imprisonment. While X has complied with the orders by restricting access to these accounts and posts in India, it maintains its disagreement with the directives and asserts that freedom of expression should encompass the content in question.

The platform has taken steps to inform affected users of these actions in line with its policies. Additionally, it has initiated legal proceedings to challenge the government's orders, citing concerns about accountability and potential arbitrariness stemming from the lack of transparency surrounding the directives.

Journalist and founder of Alt News, Muhammed Zubair, took to X on Monday, 19 February, requesting the government to restore the blocked accounts. Zubair highlighted that several accounts critical of the BJP government and influential accounts covering the Farmers' Protest in India had been suspended or withheld. He shared a list of nine accounts that had been blocked and called for their restoration.

On Tuesday, 20 February, The Hindustan Times reported that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology had finalized emergency blocking orders against 177 social media accounts and links related to the farmers' protests to maintain "public order." These orders included blocking 35 Facebook links, 35 Facebook profiles, 14 Instagram accounts, 42 X handles, and one each from Snapchat and Reddit.

Representatives from Meta (formerly Facebook, Inc.) and X argued at the meeting of the Section 69A blocking committee that instead of blocking entire accounts, specific URLs with the contentious content should be blocked. The committee's response emphasized that keeping accounts active could lead to the posting of content causing public unrest and order issues.

The exact number of blocked social media accounts to date remains unclear due to the complexity of the situation.