India is severely affected by the Corona pandemic. But critical voices about the catastrophic situation in the country are not tolerated. Among other things, the government has asked Twitter to delete critical content.
India recently counted around 350,000 new infections with the Corona virus every day. Hospitals are overloaded, and thousands die every day as a result of their infection. So it’s no wonder that critical voices are being raised in the country about the way the infection situation is being handled.
Now the government has intervened – but not, as one might expect, in the fight against the pandemic. The Indian government prefers to silence critical voices.
Twitter forced to remove tweets
By emergency directive, the Indian government has asked Twitter to remove tweets critical of the Corona policy, Medianama reports. A total of 52 tweets were affected, which the service initially blanked out. Of those, Twitter has since deleted many completely.
The short messaging service recorded the Indian government’s request in Harvard University’s “Lumen” database, which collects such actions.
India’s deletion list includes actors:in addition to politicians:in and a state minister. Member of Parliament Revanth Reddy, for example, wrote: “Too little vaccine, too few medicines, more and more deaths… The health system is collapsing…!”
Twitter is not alone
According to TechCrunch, Facebook is also affected. The government of India is also said to have sent requests to the social network to delete content.
However, TechCrunch does not have a statement from the group, nor had any entry been recorded in the “Lumen” database.
Not the first deletion case in India
Twitter already had to delete critical content in India at the beginning of the year. At that time, it was about the farmers’ protests outside the capital.
The short message service initially refused to delete the affected accounts. The Indian government then resorted to tougher measures and threatened individual employees with several years in prison.
Twitter informs users
According to the short message service, it has informed the affected accounts. It also informed them that Twitter actually only deletes Corona content that spreads dangerous or demonstrably false allegations.
