Days after the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology finalized its emergency blocking orders against dozens of social media accounts and posts linked to the farmers’ protests, social media company X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday said it will withhold specific accounts and posts in compliance with the executive orders issued by the Indian government.
The firm, owned by Elon Musk, however, expressed its disagreement with the directives and stressed its commitment to freedom of speech.
Through its Global Government Affairs account, X wrote, “The Indian government has issued executive orders requiring X to act on specific accounts and posts, subject to potential penalties including significant fines and imprisonment.”
“In compliance with the orders, we will withhold these accounts and posts in India alone; however, we disagree with these actions and maintain that freedom of expression should extend to these posts,” it added.
The Global Government Affairs, backing its support for freedom of speech, said that a writ appeal challenging the orders of the Indian government regarding the suspending of accounts currently remains pending.
“Consistent with our position, a writ appeal challenging the Indian government’s blocking orders remains pending. We have also provided the impacted users with notice of these actions in accordance with our policies,” it said.
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