Elon’s Definition Of ‘Free Speech Absolutist’ Allows Censorship In India, That Twitter Used To Fight
TechdirtMar 29, 2023
The Facts
Twitter has been accused of cooperating in censorship with India's PM Narendra Modi's government as it agreed to block more than 120 accounts on the behest of the state in the aftermath of the search for a fugitive Sikh separatist leader.
This comes after 27M people across Punjab were left without mobile internet access between March 18-21 as part of a government hunt for Amritpal Singh Sandhu, allegedly to hinder the spread of misinformation at the time.
The Spin
Narrative A
While Musk argues that he supports free speech, he doesn't mean all free speech. In reality, his support is conditioned on a country's law, meaning that when an oppressive, censorial government — such as Modi's — can legally suppress freedom of expression, Musk and Twitter are happy to comply. Musk's desire for free speech only extends to his ability to get away with saying what he wants rather than standing up to authoritarian regimes.
Narrative B
It's ironic that Western mainstream media is claiming that Musk's Twitter has colluded with Modi's government to silence the opposition just weeks after it was exposed that some 40K accounts belonging to real people, primarily Americans who had never been to India and who were not Hindu, were targeted in 2021 by a US-funded disinformation lab for allegedly supporting Hindu nationalism. It seems the media only cries censorship when trying to find fault with a non-Western country.