Why is the government of India at war with Twitter?

The past month has seen an unusual, recurring news item dominate the media cycle: the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Indian government taking on the American social media corporation Twitter.

Matters were kicked off in February when a new set of rules for social media platforms and digital news outlets, called the Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code were announced. Amongst other things, they held that social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook needed to censor speech as per an expanded – and vague – set of definitions, set up a compliance team that resides in India and take down content within 36 hours of being ordered to do so by the government.

Expert opinion on the rules has not been positive. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a United States-based digital rights group, has argued that they will have “profound implications for the privacy and freedom of expression” since they “create new possibilities for government surveillance of citizens” and “threaten the idea of a free and open internet built on a bedrock of international human rights standards”.

Even before these new rules came into effect, the government’s antagonism towards Twitter – and in particular its reputation as a space where dissent and criticism can thrive alongside official pronouncements…

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