Twitter takes on Indian government

Twitter is peeved about the removal of tweets from the platform, violating its freedom of speech guarantees.  

International relations

It’s not been plain sailing for Twitter in India over the past eighteen months. Asked to take down hundreds of accounts and tweets that denounced the Indian government, there’s been an ongoing battle over what should and shouldn’t pop up on the timeline of India’s users. There was even a police visit to two India-based Twitter offices.

Now though, tensions have reached new heights. Demands coming from New Delhi have ruffled one too many of Twitter’s feathers, and it’s fighting back with a lawsuit. Alleging that India has abused its power by ordering the social platform to disproportionately remove tweets, the gloves are officially off between two heavyweights.

My way or the highway

As you’d expect from Twitter’s legal team, they’ve pulled no punches on this one. It argues that blocking political content posted by official handles of political parties “is a violation of the freedom of speech guaranteed to citizen-users of the platform.”

There are currently 48 million monthly active users across smartphones in India. That’s a lot of people’s timelines being censored. And while India continues to play hardball, Twitter isn’t backing down this time, following in the footsteps of WhatsApp, which sued New Delhi last year. It’s messy, it’s controversial, it’s box office. Who’s got the popcorn?