Indian govt asked Twitter to remove over 50 pandemic-related tweets

Twitter has taken down dozens of tweets pertaining to the Covid-19 pandemic in India in a bid to comply with an emergency order by the Indian government.

The government passed an emergency order asking Twitter to sensor 52 tweets in the country pertaining to the pandemic, Twitter disclosed on the Lumen database. Complying with the order, the microblogging platform has withheld the listed tweets from its users in India. As per a report by MediaNama, the censored tweets include posts by Member of Parliament Revanth Reddy, filmmakers Vinod Kapri and Avinash Das, actor Vineet Kumar Singh and West Bengal state minister Moloy Ghatak.

“When we receive a valid legal request, we review it under both the Twitter Rules and local law. If the content violates Twitter’s Rules, the content will be removed from the service. If it is determined to be illegal in a particular jurisdiction, but not in violation of the Twitter Rules, we may withhold access to the content in India only,” a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement to the publication.

Furthermore, the company has also confirmed that it had notified all the account holders before censoring their posts in the country. “In all cases, we notify the account holder directly so they’re aware that we’ve received a legal order pertaining to the account,” the spokesperson said.