HomeTechnologyCriticism Abounds for Mask Amid India's Request for Content Removal

Criticism Abounds for Mask Amid India’s Request for Content Removal

After criticizing billionaire Elon Musk and the owner of Twitter for its response to government censorship demands, Musk said Sunday that Twitter “had no real choice” about complying with those requests.

The comment comes after Musk had previously described himself as “absolutely free speech.” He said he wants to buy Twitter to empower users to speak freely on the platform.

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Shortly after agreeing to the Twitter takeover, Musk explained his approach to free speech, saying, “Can someone you don’t like say something you don’t like? And if so, then we have freedom of speech.”

At the time, he added that Twitter “would be very reluctant to take things down, be very careful about permanent bans” and that the platform would be keen to allow any legal speech.

But in recent weeks, Musk has faced setbacks due to state censorship demands being made against him, including by deleting some accounts and tweets at the request of the Turkish government ahead of the country’s elections, in addition to requests from the Indian government.

In an interview with the BBC last month, Musk was asked if Twitter removed a documentary about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the request of the Indian government, and he said he didn’t know “what exactly happened.”

Bloomberg columnist Matthew Iglesias tweeted on Sunday, noting that Twitter has granted most of the government’s requests to take down content since Musk took over the platform. Musk responded, “Please point out where we had the actual choice and we’ll overrule it (meaning the lack of options).”

Musk has previously said the company will abide by the laws governing social media around the world, although in some cases such laws run counter to his vision of freedom of expression.

Last month, in an interview with the BBC, Musk said: “India has very strict rules about what can appear on social media, and we cannot override the laws of any country … and if we had a choice, either our employees will go to jail, or we will follow the laws, we will follow the laws.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Musk said, “If people in a certain country oppose certain kinds of speeches, they should talk to their elected representatives and pass legislation to prevent it.” “By ‘free speech’ I mean what is in accordance with the law, and I am opposed to censorship that goes beyond the law,” Musk tweeted last year about his vision for Twitter.

In some countries, Twitter may be subject to significant fines and other sanctions, including system suspension for non-compliance with local laws.

However, prior to Musk’s rise to power, Twitter often took legal action against government requests to take down content, including from India and Turkey, and publicly released details of such requests and how it handles them.

In many cases, Twitter leads the social network in protecting the rights of its users around the world.

In its latest takedown request report ahead of the Musk takeover, Twitter said it received more than 47,000 takedown requests between July and December 2021 and complied with 51% of them.

And in many cases, when they comply with a takedown request under the laws of a particular country, they only take down offensive content in that country, not the entire world.

Musk also came under fire for abandoning his vision of “freedom of expression” when Twitter temporarily suspended the accounts of several well-known journalists in December, saying they violated the site’s new “verification of information” policy.

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Tyler Hromadka
Tyler Hromadka
Tyler is working as the Author at World Weekly News. He has a love for writing and have been writing for a few years now as a free-lancer.

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