Twitter locks account of India’s largest opposition party | Hacker News Reader

Twitter locks account of India’s largest opposition party

techcrunch.com

45 pointspseudolus71 comments

How can Twitter seriously make the statement that they are not taking sides in a political issue by banning one party in a country? By any objective measure this is suppressing political speech and runs contrary to Twitter's stated goal of being on online Town Square, a place for discourse and the exchange of ideas. It would be one thing if an account was closed for obviously criminal reasons but I doubt that's the case here. That said, I'm not versed on Indian politics so if someone who knows more can assert that clearly criminal things were happening on this account I'll take back what I've said above.

What if the party’s account violated Twitter’s ToS?

Why not simply remove the faulty tweet?

Twitter doesn't do that. They don't delete your tweets. They may prevent anyone else, including your followers, from viewing your tweets. They may prevent you from logging in until you delete your evil tweets yourself. But they won't delete your tweets. That would be Going Too Far.

Because that doesn't leave any lasting warning, as the author can just post the same tweet dozens of times again.

Is it reasonable for a public company to have terms of service which allow for the abridgement of political speech absent the commission of a crime? Twitter is affecting the internal politics of a nation by deciding who can and cannot use their platform for political purposes.

And no: I would *not* defend the use of Twitter by the Nazi party if this were the 1930s. In this scenario I would expect Twitter to make an explanation that goes beyond the "violates our terms of service" or some amorphous "community guidelines" nonsense. Twitter is affecting political activity in a foreign nation; I would support India in either banning Twitter from their country or taking civil or criminal actions for silencing political discourse (whatever the local laws permit).

Yes, I think it is reasonable. You do too, it's just that you think it's ok in some circumstances and not others.

It is unreasonable if Twitter doesn't make a statement as to why. If an intelligence agency of a foreign government had done this it would be an act of war. I don't see why Twitter should be seen as any less nefarious merely because it's a company with a ToS when they don't actually explain WHY certain decisions are made and cowardly point to a ToS as though that is an omnibus explanation for all of their actions.

If an intelligence agency or foreign government did it...they'd be hacking Twitter to do it, and we'd be having a different conversation. Twitter should be free to operate their business, within the bounds of the law, as they see fit. If you think they are being unreasonable, sell your stock, delete your account, petition your congress critter.

> It is unreasonable if Twitter doesn't make a statement as to why.

The article cites such statements.

And if their ToS are themselves political?

And since humans are inherently political, we should just delete the entirety of humanity.

Then Twitter's ToS was designed in a manner that promotes one political party above the other. It's not complicated.

Hm, maybe. But maybe, some parties are worse than others. I can think of 10s of political parties that should not have been allowed to participate in the democratic process as they (before elections) shown to condone political violence.

So? Condoning violence is irrelevant to if a party represents the electorate.

They’d have to make it legal to condone violence first then.

That's silly.

If I start the "Election Fraud Party", I don't get to complain that enforcing free and fair elections is an attack on me.

Do you feel your logical extreme is a good rebuttal here?

The article indicates the party account got locked for doxxing a nine year old rape victim. If there's an extreme here, it's not my position.

International law supersedes Twitter's ToS and Twitter's actions are entangling the United States into international political conflicts that we don't need to be dumped into.

The core question as far as international law is concerned is whether or not Twitter's actions in these instances are those of a state or if it is a private actor. Twitter would say it's a private actor, but considering the close historical coordination between Twitter, the State Department, and the intelligence octopus, one would have to be somewhere between clueless, brain damaged, and a stooge to argue that Twitter is wholly a private actor and completely uncontaminated from American state pressure.

I'm not an Indian, not ethnically Indian, don't care about India, but India should accordingly treat Twitter as if it is an American state actor and seek restitution and remediation under the exact same reasoning that the United States uses to blame the Russian state for election interference among other miscellaneous "cyber" things.

We do use this exact reasoning against the Russians with even less evidence. Our economic policy of attempting to digitally dominate and interfere with foreign powers is also screwing up our diplomacy (not that American diplomacy can really get any more twisted, but still, I'm speaking in terms of the principle here). India's at an inflection point now in its own foreign policy, and it is not helpful to the American interest to have quasi-private frothing algorithmic dogs causing needless diplomatic incidents continuously for no discernable benefit to anyone but Twitter's feckless shareholders.

I am neither clueless, brain damaged, or a stooge, and I think Twitter is a wholly private actor. My opinion on this topic is backed by a raft of laws and legal precedent; yours is not.

Right, just like the British East India Company was a "private actor." It's just a glove for the hand of the state.

The Indian government was the entity that first asked Twitter to take action on this issue.

Being apolitical doesn't mean "not touching politicians", it means "applying rules consistently regardless of politics and not designing rules for political gain".

To not touch politicians would be to take the stand that some people are important politicians and some are not, that would be an inherently political distinction. Thus that route is not apolitical (short of just not moderating at all, that is possible but does not create a platform that people want to use).

I don't know anything about indian politics, or this case apart from what is said in the article. I don't know if this account was banned for apolitical reasons. But to take the position that banning a political party is fundamentally taking sides in a political issue is wrong.

Both, the ruling party and twitter are locked in a pyrrhic struggle. One cannot let go of the market the other the platform.

11 comments on HN so far, discussing politics and complaints about Twitter, and so far not one has responded to the content of the article, in which Twitter claims to have locked every account that posted a picture of a rape victim's family, violating its policy on doxxing.

Exactly. It's hard to tell if that was precisely what happened (I blame the cultural and linguistic translation barrier), but if it was, Twitter's TOS on doxxing is very clear.

The locking is necessary as a temporary and immediate mitigation strategy to minimize harm until the nature of the content is determined or the content is removed, rendering locking moot. Standard procedure.

It's a photo-op, not doxxing. This is tantamount to accusing the family of doxxing themselves considering they invited him to meet with them.

> Sharing a picture of his meeting with the girl's family on Wednesday, Rahul Gandhi had tweeted in Hindi, “Parents' tears are saying only one thing -- their daughter, the daughter of this country, deserves justice. And I am with them on this path to justice.”

https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/dalit-rape-murder-rahu...

This article has more details. https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/12/tech/twitter-india-congre... The opposition party clearly had the permission of the parents to post the photo. The Indian government appears to have requested of Twitter to remove the photo since it was used for political purposes by the opposition.

> The opposition party clearly had the permission of the parents to post the photo

Where does it say in the article you have linked?

It's clear from context because the photos are from a meeting with the victim's family. You can see the censored photos here: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/rahul-gandhi-... I don't know why India has a law against showing photos of rape victims families. Perhaps because rape brings shame to the victim's family in some circles. However, if you are publicly meeting with a national politician you clearly do not ascribe to that view and it is obvious that you wouldn't mind being seen in photos with that politician.

All these are just your opinions. You wrote your statement as if it were a fact.

Could they not have deleted the tweet or the picture and posted in its place an explanation citing the precise policy that's being enforced?

I don't think I (or probably most others here) have enough information to intelligently comment on that.

Is the family of the rape victim consenting to their image being used, or not? Is the picture and/or identity of the family widely broadcast in the media, or not? Is the picture portraying things in a particularly unique and politically important light (like the napalm girl picture), or not?

Edit: I see other people starting to bring in this sort of information now, but I don't think it's surprising that early comments are on the content of the article.

This is like when Twitter removed a joke meme post by Trump because it was “manipulated media.”

TechCrunch article is light on details. CNN has more information

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/12/tech/twitter-india-congress-p...

Editing to add another article. This article mentions that it was Rahul Gandhi, the prince of the Gandhi dynasty, that first posted it and his account was temporarily locked. Then in protest, senior leaders in his party posted the same image! So their accounts were also temporarily locked.

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/congress-rahul-g...

Regardless of all other factors, Twitter is a moderated forum, and "showing you disagree with admin action by doing the same thing that got another user's account locked will get your account locked" is pretty bog-standard forum administration.

Perhaps it will be easier for partisans in the US to rally in support of freer speech when the details of the situation are less familiar.

Hmm, nope, I feel exactly the same on this topic that I did before. If India or Indians don't like the impact Twitter has on their internal politics they are free to ban or stop using Twitter as they see fit.

Terrible idea.

Punishing masses for crimes (if there is any) of individuals is a net negative. We had that in Turkey for years. Twitter, Youtube, Wikipedia and hundreds of lewd sites are blocked with that mindset. Turkey is 80M people and the impact was huge and ugly. I can't imagine what will happen to India with 1.3B if mass bans become mainstream.

It's a little hard over the translation gap to understand why the account was locked... Am I understanding correctly that Twitter interpreted sharing detailed information about a murder victim as doxxing?

https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/personal-info...

Yep. According to Indian laws, publishing the identities or pictures of rape victims (or their families) is illegal. Twitter really doesn't have a choice here.

Well, sort of. That's why I'm trying to figure out if they decided it was doxxing or if they decided it was illegal in India.

There are separate procedures for those... Their policies for doxxing are global. But for content illegal in a region, Twitter will hide tweets that are illegal within that jurisdiction, but not globally (cross reference handling of Nazi support messages and imagery in France and Germany... Which, as a side note, creates the funny side effect that if you grab that channel of data for a specific tweet or account, you can tell if Twitter thinks a user is a Nazi sympathizer).

It looks like there is confusion in the way this is being reported. In some news articles they wrote accounts were locked. In one article it was mentioned that the tweets were made invisible.

From what I saw, Rahul Gandhi, a member of the opposition party, met with the parents of a 9 year old girl who was raped and murdered. He posted a picture of this meeting on Twitter, which included the parents. Saying, “Parents' tears are saying only one thing -- their daughter, the daughter of this country, deserves justice. And I am with them on this path to justice.”

So then, "Claiming that the tweet was in violation of provisions of the Juvenile Justice Act and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) had asked the Delhi Police and Twitter to take action over Rahul Gandhi posting the photo of the girl's family on the microblogging website." [1]

Then, I think a bunch of other members of this party started posting the picture in protest, and also have been banned.

I think Twitter has claimed that the image isn't just illegal, but also violates their policy.

[1] https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/dalit-rape-murder-rahu...

So it seems that the dominant opinion in this thread is that twitter is a private company, and that they are allowed to operate as they see fit. They can ban whoever they want, as long as they say it violated their tos. But in [1], it says

> Claiming that the tweet was in violation of provisions of the Juvenile Justice Act and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) had asked the Delhi Police and Twitter to take action over Rahul Gandhi posting the photo of the girl's family on the microblogging website.

So my question is - would twitter have done anything if not asked by the police? I doubt it, but I cannot say for sure. But doesn't the fact that they were asked to take action make the whole "they're just enforcing their tos" argument moot?

It just seems like this is a truly horrific thing that happened, and frankly it makes me sad that so many people come in and say "well, the billion dollar outrage production / data mining corporation said it was ok, and the government who is being protested for not prosecuting anyone said it was ok, so what's the issue?" Would that be your response if this happened in america? I know they are different countries with different laws and multinational corporations need to follow the laws of the countries they operate in, but isn't there more to it than that?

Also, is there anyone who is Indian or understands Indian politics who can provide some more context?

[1]: https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/delhi-rape-murder-a-ca...

This needs to be seen in the larger context. The ruling party came to power by using social media (along with the MSM) much more effectively than the others.

I think they are a bit concerned with the way Trump was de-platformed by the US tech companies and want to make sure it doesn't happen to them - so want to "reign" them in. Hence the series of incidences with twitter (compliance issue, tagging fake information etc).

The above incident that happened is reprehensible. Also if prosecuted, the identity of one of the alleged culprit may not gel well with the ruling party's agenda.

I think the ruling party remembers history, a similar incident occurred in 2012 when the current opposition was in power[1], which led to a society wide backlash.

Now add to the fact that major states in India go to polls next year and national elections in 2024 and you get the motivations of everybody involved.

This is the broader context.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Delhi_gang_rape_and_murde...

Maybe a senator of the opposition party posted about the effectiveness of cloth masks, or the lack thereof....

should we lock GOP's twitter account because a senator said masks aren't effective?

It's funny you say that. Senator Rand Paul was just suspended from YouTube for disputing the effectiveness of cloth masks: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/11/business/youtube-rand-pau...

Banning an individual for their actions is vastly differently than banning an entire party for the actions of one of its members.

Ah, I misread your comment. I also wasn't making any broader point, just thought it was amusing how closely very recent news matched your hypothetical.

Well: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57897401 Twitter suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene over 'misleading' Covid posts

It wasn't about masks but what I have watched a video of telling worse things to a crowd.

Yes

Well, you've just got it all figured out, don't you?

Thankfully, we didn't have this type of rampant censorship before the discovery of germ theory, or we'd all still be bloodletting.

Look, I understand why you view this as censorship. But I hope you can understand why I don't- as far as I am concerned (and as far as US law is concerned) Twitter is a private actor and has the same rights to freedom of speech and freedom of association that I have. If me or Twitter genuinely believe that the info Rand Paul is putting out is harmful, neither of us should be required to host his opinions, in my opinion.

I am not a libertarian, so no, I am not confused about censorship only being a consequence of state action. See: The Catholic Church and many similar entities. Now it's mega corporations. We recently learned, however, that some are working hand in glove with the U.S. federal government when determining what to censor. That this is all under the spectre of impending anti-trust action is not lost on the executives of those companies.

In 1860 barely any countries allowed women to vote. So public opinion was maybe slightly more moderated back then, than what you think.

Not to mention that newspapers work slightly different than online messaging platforms.

Women's suffrage is important. I'd argue denying half the population to vote is similar in degree to a handful of mega corporations determining what is and isn't good science. But it is a difference in kind.

Motus in fine velocior. Big changes are happening as a rapid succession of incremental acts. The culmination is not pretty.

Somehow I expect that even some of those who have most fully internalized the commands of their oppressors are beginning to experience a bit of cognitive dissonance from the rapid pace of oligarchic usurpation and expanding totalitarian control. At least one hopes. But there are always those who will live out their lives in the cocoon of Stockholm syndrome.

> In a statement, a Twitter spokesperson said the company’s rules are enforced judiciously and impartially for everyone on our service.

I don't know the details of why they are blocking the Indian National Congress' account. What I can say is that they really need to stop saying things like this. They absolutely -do not- apply it fairly. Different standards apply if you are a US politician, and even then it's not uniform.

Before people jump to say they violated Twitter's ToC, just remember that this isn't the first time Modi has coerced Twitter:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/10/technology/india-twitter....

Sadly, this is not the first time American tech giants have contributed to suppressing free speech. At the behest of Israel, Facebook has blocked the accounts of Palestinian activists and most recently of Gaza's Shebab News Agency. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/palestine-facebook-blocks... The rationale is, as always, "violating our community standards". Exactly what those community standards or the specific infractions are is never made explicit. Whatever your political allegiances are, it is very concerning that a small number of American tech giants wield so much power with which to influence global opinion.

(And before someone says "what about Trump?" No, he shouldn't have been kicked off either; both Indian Communists and American presidents have the right to free speech.)

In this case the reason is made explicitly clear. Furthermore, after they took the action against Rahul Gandhi, his party leaders shared the same image in protest.

I hope they lose their 230 protection sooner than later.

230 is US law, we're talking about India. They could lose 230 protections and nothing would be different, in and of itself.

It's always worth remembering that lacking 230 protection, they won't be allowing this content... They'll be blocking more.

230 protection limits their liability if somebody uses their service to communicate information that could be civilly actionable to they platform as host if other people's words and images. Lacking that protection, vast quantities of content (potential copyright infringement, potential libel, potential slander, etc.) become too risky to host.

... And lacking 230 protection, Rand Paul and the Indian Congress Party would likely still lack any legal standard by which they could compel Twitter to host their content.

Worse than that, it effectively makes the site legally impossible to run. When people say "remove section 230 protection" what they're really saying is "shut the website down".

Yes. At which point, we'll be where we are right now but with several fewer communications services. People who want this content shared would still be able to host it on their own servers (and assume the liability if someone brings legal action), as they can do right now.

Only that they can't because isps will kick you out also.

I want to make it illegal for isps to kick people out as well. :-)

Then your goal is at odds with removing section 230 protection. Section 230 protection is also what shields ISPs... If it were done away with, ISPs would be at risk of taking lawsuits for things done via their service and would flee the market. Cloudflare would drop the Daily Stormer faster in a world without 230.

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