Mohammed Zubair, co-founder of the fact-checking website Alt News, received an email from Twitter Inc on Thursday in the “interest of transparency” that “Indian law enforcement” had reported that a tweet from his handle @zoo_bear violates the “law(s) of India”.
“As Twitter strongly believes in defending and respecting the voice of our users, it is our policy to notify our users if we receive a legal request from an authorized entity (such as law enforcement or a government agency) to remove content from their account. We provide notice whether or not the user lives in the country where the request originated,” added the email.
Twitter also mentioned taking appropriate action to protect the user’s interest and suggested that he can seek legal counsel challenging the request in court or contact relevant civil society organisations or voluntarily delete the content in question, or find some other resolution.
In addition to sharing a screenshot of this particular email, Zubair also revealed that he has received over 10 such emails from Twitter since April 2020.
Wow! How is this Fact check video violating law of India? @TwitterIndia @TwitterSupport @rsprasad 🤯
Is Indian Govt allergic to Facts?Twitter might not have taken any action against my tweet. But they have restricted my twitter reach after multiple such notices. pic.twitter.com/C1jiElla71
— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) June 11, 2021
Along with the latest email, Zubair also shared the tweet in question, which was posted by him on March 10. It contained a fact-checked video that compared an incendiary viral video and the original it was clipped from.
Ahead of Assam legislative assembly polls 2021, a video falsely portraying All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) chief Badruddin Ajmal making provocative comments about establishing an Islamic state went viral.
While tweeting the fact-checked video, Zubair wrote that several news outlets, journalists, BJP members, RSS members, Right Wing trolls followed by Prime Minister, channel headed by Himanta Biswa’s wife, shared this video clip ahead of the Assam polls.
Though Twitter has not taken any action against his tweet, Zubair said the microblogging site has restricted his reach. He shared several screenshots on Twitter of users who claimed that Zubair was unfollowed from their respective accounts without their knowledge.
On June 4, cartoonist Manjul received a similar mail from Twitter Inc that the microblogging site had received a request from the “Indian law enforcement” regarding his handle @MANJULtoons violating Indian laws.
Recommended
Pratik Sinha, the co-founder of Alt News, pointed to this incident with cartoonist Manjul and said, “We don’t know which police department is sending these requests, nor do we know what law their tweets violate – no transparency.” He further questioned, “since when did police become the judiciary in India? How does police get to decide what content violates Indian law and what doesn’t?”
“It is clear that these are attempts to silence voices that question the Government of India. The Union Govt is using every tool at its disposal to silence, scare, threaten individuals who seek accountability from them through their work,” he added.
On Wednesday, Twitter Inc wrote to the Centre that in compliance with the new IT Rules introduced by the government in February this year, it has appointed a Nodal Contact Person and a Resident Grievance Officer on a contractual basis as the company recruits to fill the positions on a permanent basis.