India's demands for Twitter content removal among highest in the world

Amidst the crackdown on extremist elements in Punjab, several Twitter handles were taken down after being flagged by the Indian government as part of an internet shutdown. Earlier this month, Elon Musk admitted that he didn't know why tweets with a controversial BBC documentary on Prime Minister Modi had been removed.

It turns out that India, apart from being Twitter's third-largest market by number of users, is also one of the top for countries when it comes to demands for removal of content.

Major market also high in censorship?

• Although US, Brazil and Japan join India among top four markets, the country was listed alongside Turkey and South Korea, when it comes to legal directions against tweets and handles.

• Collectively, the four countries sent 53,000 demands to Twitter between January and June 2022, which were varying in nature.

• India also topped the list of countries that asked for user data in the first half of the past year.

• The numbers are also from a period before Twitter's new boss Elon Musk took over, and when the platform hadn't taken down the BBC documentary or removed handles linked to the crisis in Punjab.

Also been engaged in a tussle

• Twitter has also approached Karnataka High Court against certain demands for removal, citing vague directions.

• In some cases, it also argued that the removal requests were in line with the legal criteria.

• Twitter users worldwide were also forced to delete more than 65 lakh pieces of content during the first six months of 2022.

• In 2021, Twitter's premises had also been raided by police in Delhi, and it had agreed to appoint a local compliance officer as per Indian norms after that.