Censoring Kashmiri activists and demonetisation fact-checkers on Twitter is unacceptable
That India and the big bad world of the internet share a difficult relationship is a truth universally acknowledged. Nowhere is this relationship more strained than in the conflict-torn Kashmir. As the rest of India basks in the supposed glory of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s "digital renaissance", Kashmir has been constantly on the receiving end of human rights violations, also in internet blockages.
According to multiple reports, Twitter, the microblogging website, has received complaints from the government of India, asking it to block hundreds of accounts and tweets that have been found “propagating objectionable content”. Unsurprisingly, most of the content and accounts appear to involve Kashmir and Kashmir-related issues.
The issue was first reported by WithKashmir.org on September 2. The report claimed that “scores of Kashmiri activists” received emails from Twitter’s legal division, stating “official correspondence” about their Twitter accounts being in violation of Indian law, particularly Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Several of these Kashmiri activists then found themselves either blocked or "shadow-banned".
"The correspondence claims that your account is in violation of Indian law. Please note we may be obligated to take action regarding the content identified in the complaint in the future. Please let us know by replying to this email as soon as possible if you decide to voluntarily remove the content identified on your account,” reads the official email.
According to TV news reports, these handles were "laced with content promoting Abu Dujana, Musa, Burhan Wani, AQIS etc", suggesting collusion with either banned terrorist organisations, or slain/wanted militants.
What is shadow-banning?
Shadow-banning, stealth-banning, ghost-banning or ghosting is the act of blocking users from an online community in such a way that the users do not realise that they have been banned. While shadow-banning has been a common practice on several public forums like Reddit, Twitter is a little late to the party. BuzzFeed News reported in February about Twitter’s "new anti-harassment initiative" that throttles the reach of tweets.
Twitter temporarily prevents tweets from users they categorise as "abusive" from being displayed to people who don't follow them, thereby effectively reducing their reach. For all intents and purposes, the account is muted from all those who don’t follow it.
While shadow-banning is an effective tool to curtail harassment and abuse, it is usually left to local moderators to decide if rules and community etiquettes are being flouted, and if these indiscretions deserve ghosting. Things take a completely different turn when governments themselves try to strong-arm the communities to implement these rules willy-nilly.
Kashmir and the internet
Kashmir is no stranger to attacks on internet freedoms. An ongoing study conducted by the Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC) found that India has seen 29 instances of internet shutdown in the first seven months of 2017 — all in the name of preserving law and order. Another article published by Medianama said the latest SFLC tracker showed that 47 instances of internet shutdown has taken place till date in 2017, more than all the instances of net shutdowns in the whole of 2016.
Leading the list in terms of internet shutdowns is Kashmir Valley, a region that has been regularly on the receiving end of human rights violations.
In 2017, there have been at least 10 cases of internet suspensions (and a total of 40 internet shutdowns since 2011) in the conflict-torn region due to various incidents; most recently in the aftermath of terrorist attack on Amarnath pilgrims. In 2016, internet services in the Valley were suspended for around 17 days at a stretch after the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani.
The Valley has seen partial shutdown curtailing mobile internet for months at end in the aftermath of Wani's death, when spontaneous outpouring of grief among Kashmiris rocked the Valley during the latter half of 2016.
In May 2017, David Kaye, the United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, and Michel Forst, the special rapporteur on human rights defenders, condemned the restrictions on the internet and social media services in Jammu and Kashmir, stressing that the scope of the restrictions undermined "the government's stated aim of preventing dissemination of information that could lead to violence”.
According to reports, the IT ministry, on August 24, 2017, sent a letter to Twitter, asking the company to block certain users and content under Section 69A of the IT Act. The letter reads, “Based on recommendations of the committee and looking at the sensitivity of the request, it is hereby directed to Twitter to block/remove 115 Twitter handles/tweets in the interest of public order as well as for preventing any kind of cognizable offense...”
This is, in fact, not even the first time Kashmir related content on social media has found itself mysteriously blocked. In 2016, The Wire reported Facebook’s global content moderation team deleted several posts about Kashmir that apparently violated the company’s “community standards”, and handed out temporary account bans, restricting the reach of certain Facebook communities. These bans and attempts at censorship also included noted Indian documentary filmmaker Sanjay Kak, whose Facebook account was temporarily suspended, allegedly because of a post he had written about Burhan Wani.
Internet laws in India
Hindustan Times reached out to Twitter officials for comments on this digital gag order, and their response was as vague as it gets. They said, “Many countries have laws that may apply to tweets and/or Twitter account content. In our continuing effort to make our services available to users everywhere, if we receive a valid and properly scoped request from an authorized entity, it may be necessary to reactively withhold access to certain content in a particular country from time to time.”
What are these laws, one may ask. A quiet notification from August 7, 2017 - titled “Temporary Suspension of Telecom Services (Public Emergency or Public Safety) Rules, 2017” outlines the rules for shutting the internet down.
The Department of Telecom, under the Union ministry of communications, via the notification, has effectively framed rules that need to be followed in cases where the internet needs to be temporarily suspended in any part of the country.
Additionally, the Section 69A of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act of 2008 allows the government to block specific websites and pages in “the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State”.
Shut dissent
It’s not just Kashmir related posts and accounts that are finding themselves stealth-banned. James Wilson, an internet activist, a vocal opponent of demonetisation, Aadhaar and government digital leashing, who has myth-busted several demonetisation-related claims of the Modi government, found his Twitter account shadow-banned. Why? No one knows, but one can guess, given the man’s “credentials”.
Surprisingly, however, in Wilson’s case, he wasn’t informed about the stealth-ban by Twitter. “First, it was pointed out by @Stupidosaur, after which many started to point it out. I was not aware of it at all- all of this started last night,” Wilson said.
On one hand, we have multiple incidents of maufactured outrage and propaganda that suits the government's agenda.
Senior journalist and author Swati Chaturvedi, in her book I am a Troll, talks about how a covert BJP social media cell that organised online troops to pressurise the e-commerce company Snapdeal to drop actor Aamir Khan as its brand ambassador, after the latter made strong comments criticising the government in 2015. These are allegedly the same people who try to silence any liberal voice that dares to speak against the prime minister, rising fascism and the negative effects of an intolerant Hindutva regime.
The same happened to MakeMyTrip.com, the popular travel website, when Keyur Joshi, its co-founder and chief strategic advisor, tweeted about India's imminent bovine bureaucracy, after the cattle trade restrictions were notified under the Prevention of Animal Cruelty Act (Regulation of Livestock Markets).
Even as recently as recently as a week ago, just a day after the Reserve Bank of India’s report on demonetisation proved how the move did nothing to rid India of black money, a planned campaign was seen on Twitter as numerous accounts declared Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s move a “success”.
On the other hand, we can see a clear attempt to shut down those who not only oppose, but also fact-check the government's propaganda and tall claims. If this is how the Modi government chooses to counter opposition, how will freedom of expression survive?