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Comment by msravi | Hacker News Reader

> without explicitly calling for violent uprisings, etc

So that's the problem in this context. Twitter WAS being used to call for a violent uprising in the name of a blatantly false non-existent "genocide":

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27773994

To repeat, a farmer rammed a tractor into a barricade causing the tractor to overturn and was killed. The whole thing was clearly caught on camera[1][2]. Within minutes there were blatantly false tweets flying around saying that police had fired on the farmers and there was a genocide in progress (with an associated hashtag). Twitter refused to take down such blatantly false and deliberately incendiary tweets.

1. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-natio...

2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgSLaOMEzHY

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>Twitter refused to take down such blatantly false and deliberately incendiary tweets.

The problem of applying censorship to counter fake news is that the same thing can be applied to counter legit news as well.

So such a precedent should never be set.

That's a good philosophical position to take, except when you're in charge of the law and order of a city, and you have messages such as these doing the rounds in the midst of a large scale protest.

The messages are used to legitimize people armed with daggers and sickles and machetes belonging to sundry outfits pouring out onto the streets and indulging in arson, rioting, and murder. The situation is not hypothetical.

Twitter itself, of course, does not take that philosophical position.

> except when you're in charge of the law and order of a city, and you have messages such as these doing the rounds in the midst of a large scale protest.

I think that cannot justify it. There are lines that should not be crossed, no matter what.

Because if some kind of unrest gives you the justification to take some freedom away from the people, then nothing is preventing you from staging such an unrest, and proceeding to do exactly what you wanted.

> legitimize people armed with daggers and sickles and machetes belonging to sundry outfits pouring out onto the streets and indulging in arson, rioting, and murder.

Also can you give be some proof that this was happening?

> Also can you give be some proof that this was happening?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Farmers'_Republic_Day_pro...

The agitating protestors vandalised a DTC bus and police vehicles. According to the police, the protestors used sticks, iron rods, pelted stones, while some Nihang protestors rode on horses fully equipped with deadly weapons like swords, kirpans and fursas and some protesters even used their tractors to run over the police. Some protesters driving their speeding tractors rammed barricades and attempted to mow down the policeman on duty

Another example, another city, another social media post: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Bangalore_riots

So I think we can agree that there was a clash with police.

But you were saying the farmers where indulging in murder.

so do you have a number (and source for the same), for how many were murdered by the farmers, during this event?

> But you were saying the farmers where indulging in murder.

I said no such thing.

>The messages are used to legitimize people armed with daggers and sickles and machetes belonging to sundry outfits pouring out onto the streets and indulging in arson, rioting, and murder.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27781810

Twitter did take down tweets and suspended accounts.

They were reinstated.

No, they did not take them down immediately (or even the same day) when it mattered. They took them down some 2 or 3 days or so after the incident, after the government cried foul and there was a big brouhaha about the whole thing. The new IT rules mandate a time-bound takedown for lawful requests. Hence the need for a compliance officer.

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