|THE DEN|
The Government of India, has always been alleged to have a certain control over media since they came into power in 2014. With the bias, the public was feeling, they took it to social media for their actual news. The party’s IT network did a lot to reply to the criticism with rapid replies on every negative post among other things like Kangana Ranaut. The government with CAA and farmer’s protests in a declining economy with per capita income falling below Bangladesh, the shortage of vaccines, oxygen, jobs was losing its narrative and with the fact checking and manipulated media tags, the government was losing all its power. With these laws, the government can control any platform that has more than 50 lakh registered users or subscribers. The repercussions could include, not letting any criticism of the government, its leader and the party come out by using powers under these law as the elections come near or suppressing a voice who has wronged by a politician in power, all at the discretion of the Government of India.
The Caravan Seed
After January 26 protests by farmers in Delhi, the government issued twitter an order to ban 500 accounts of journalists, politicians and activists including The Caravan magazine. The account upon logging in showed, “withheld in India in response to a legal demand”. After
receiving backlash all over the world, Twitter reinstated several accounts that showed no evidence of wrongdoing. The Government of India then issued a non compliance notice to Twitter.
The Kangana Snag
Twitter banned Kangana Ranaut’s account following her video of hate speech tantamount to provocation of violence and asking for President’s Rule in West Bengal. Kangana had been advocating all of BJP’s policies and spatting over any criticism from celebrities, from Rihanna to Diljit Dosanjh.
The Sambit Patra Straw
Sambit Patra, BJP’s chief spokesperson tweeted with an alleged fake toolkit framing Saumya Verma in her track to be charged under sedition for conspiring against Prime Minister Narendar Modi which was fact checked by Alt News and others, proving it to be fake. In a desperate attempt to divert attention from the pandemic and the government’s shortcomings, the spokesperson got a manipulated media tag for his post. The government asked Twitter to remove the tag in order to save face citing ‘Such a tag by Twitter appears to be pre-judged,
prejudiced and a deliberate attempt to colour the investigation by local law enforcement agency’. After this, the government raided Twitter offices as a show of force under the pretence to issue a notice.
Twitter’s Response
Twitter removed the blue verification ticks from accounts of various members of RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh). On response, said Twitter removes the verification tick from accounts that have been inactive.
Twitter has not complied with the new IT rules citing freedom of expression that the government is trying to suppress.
Whatsapp has sued the Government of India in the Delhi High Court against the new IT rules that as it infringes upon the fundamental right to privacy without satisfying the three-part test set forth by the Supreme Court of legality, necessity and proportionality; it violates the fundamental right to freedom of speech and expression and the requirement to enable
identification of the first originator of the information is ultra vires its parent statutory provision, Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
The Wire and other prominent digital media outlets have also approached the high court against the new IT rules as the entire Part III of the [IT] Rules that seeks to set up a regulatory mechanism for digital media is ultra vires the [IT] Act. And if allowed to stand it would be so arbitrary and unwarranted an intrusion on expression, as to render it ultra vires the Act on that score alone or throw a doubt upon the validity of the parent act, according to the petition.
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