Twitter blocked 122 accounts in India at the government’s request

Free speech?

Two decades back, Richard Posner wrote: "[Dershowitz] makes a point that only the most doctrinaire civil libertarians ... deny: if the stakes are high enough, torture is permissible. No one who doubts that this is the case should be in a position of responsibility. If torture is the only means of obtaining the information necessary to prevent the detonation of a nuclear bomb in Times Square, torture should be used — and will be used — to obtain the information."[1]

Those unfamiliar with the Khalistan issue and the related Punjab insurgency[2] of the 1980s and 90s should not carry any doubts in their minds as to the scale of the Indian state's response to any activities that attempt to rekindle or support the bombings, assassinations, terror and bloodbath of that era. The choice between preventing tens of thousands of deaths and freedom of speech is a very simple one. Twitter and other social media companies will have to comply, one way or the other.

[1] Why Terrorism Works (https://web.archive.org/web/20121023012718/http://www.powell...)

[2] Insurgency in Punjab (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurgency_in_Punjab)