Twitter has pulled down at least 50 tweets at the behestof the Indian government, criticising it for the poor handling of the ongoingCovid-19 pandemic.
The data available on Lumen database shows that themicro-blogging platform has deleted more than 50 tweets that belonged to peoplelike Revanth Reddy, an MP from Telangana; Moloy Ghatak, a West Bengal stateminister; two filmmakers; an actor and others.
First reported by Medianama, the government had sent anemergency order to Twitter to remove these tweets.
A Twitter spokesperson said in a statement that when itreceives a valid legal request, it reviews it under both the Twitter Rules andlocal law.
"If the content violates Twitter's Rules, thecontent will be removed from the service. In all cases, we notify the accountholder directly so they're aware that we've received a legal order pertainingto the account," the company said in a statement.
For the fifth consecutive day, the country has reportedover 2,000 daily deaths. India reported 3.49 lakh fresh Covid cases with 2,760deaths in the last 24 hours.
In February, Twitter took a range of enforcement actionsagainst certain Twitter accounts after the Indian government ordered it to takedown more than 500 accounts for clear violations of its rules.
Despite permanently banning these accounts, Twitter saidthat it does not believe that the actions it has been directed to take by theMinistry of Information Technology are consistent with the Indian law.
"In keeping with our principles of defendingprotected speech and freedom of expression, we have not taken any action onaccounts that consist of news media entities, journalists, activists, andpoliticians.
"To do so, we believe, would violate theirfundamental right to free expression under Indian law," the micro-bloggingplatform had reiterated. The IT Ministry had sent Twitter three notices to blocknearly 1,435 accounts that were posting content in relation to the farmerprotests in India.
Twitter said that it withheld a portion of the accountsidentified in the blocking orders under its 'Country Withheld Content' policywithin India only.