Editorial: Absolutism of free speech

A can of worms was opened when Twitter’s former CEO Jack Dorsey claimed that the Centre had threatened the social media giant with a shut-down in the country unless it complied with instructions issued during the farmers’ protest of 2020-21. Dorsey remarked that India had placed several requests pertaining to blocking the accounts of a few journalists who had been critical of the government, as well as contact information in some cases. There were threats of raiding employee homes, which as per Dorsey, did happen, as well as shutting down the regional office in the event of non-compliance.

IT Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar hit back, terming the tech mogul’s statements as an outright lie, adding that Twitter had constantly run afoul of India’s laws until July 2022, when it finally complied. Chandrasekhar specifically referred to misinformation and reports of genocide floating on the platform, apparently alluding to the hashtag #ModiPlanningFarmerGenocide, which the Ministry sought to remove. Twitter had spoken about the search at one of its offices by Delhi Police in 2021 and referred to it as an intimidation tactic. But, neither Twitter nor the government had addressed the risk to individual employees in terms of their homes being raided.

The episode has spurred a political slugfest with the Congress alleging that even Rahul Gandhi’s account was blocked under pressure from the Centre. Party chief Mallikarjun Kharge reprimanded the BJP for deploying its ‘toolkit’ of dictatorship. During the peak of the farmers’ protests in 2021, entire accounts, rather than singular tweets were ordered to be deleted by the government. Accounts associated with the Kisan Ekta Morcha, as well that of farmer activist Hansraj Meena were among those targeted.

The idea of a toolkit – or a digital explanatory document was also popularised during this season. While activists like Disha Ravi were jailed for disseminating data pertaining to the protests, everyone from Greta Thunberg to popstar Rihanna had a say in an ‘internal matter of India’. Sadly, we also witnessed the PM referring to agitators as ‘andolanjeevi’, and his supporters invoking epithets like traitors, naxalites and terrorists when referring to farmers.

The stir was being quelled – with the erection of massive concrete barricades on the roads, barbed wire fences and scattering of nails. As many as 750 farmers had perished during the protests which culminated in the repeal of the farm laws.

Apart from this, the Centre even exercised its censorship powers through another order to redact as many as 857 tweets that were calling out the government’s inefficiency in handling the COVID-19 pandemic. Attempts by the government and its machinery to stifle dissent of any kind invoke a sigh of numbness. Aspects of a democracy like press freedom, personal liberty and the right of expression of citizens go out the window when cops can arrest an individual for putting up a display picture of Aurangzeb on WhatsApp. Such subversions obviously don’t bode well for a nation on the cusp of turning into a superpower.

Now, as part of the forthcoming Digital India Bill, the Centre is reviewing the concept of a safe harbour for social media companies. This clause, as prescribed under Section 79 of the IT Act, 2000 – refers to the legal immunity that online intermediaries enjoy against content posted by users on their platforms. Free speech absolutists might want to pay attention to the fine print of India’s legalese, for you can’t say that you weren’t warned.