Elon Musk says not possible to uphold freedom of speech in India, don’t want Twitter employees to go to jail
Elon Musk is all for free speech and no censorship and absolute freedom to say whatever that can be said on Twitter. But not if it is about India and within the Indian Twitter space. In a candid admission in an interview to the BBC, Twitter boss Elon Musk said that in India, social media rules are extremely strict and it is not possible for the website to offer the same freedom of speech to Indian users that it does in the US and other Western countries.
Musk, in a tacit admission that Twitter often blocks and censures content in India, said that if Twitter doesn’t comply with the rules, its employees in India will end up going to jail.
In the interview conducted on Twitter Spaces, Musk said, “The rules in India for what can appear on social media are quite strict, and we can’t go beyond the laws of a country… if we have a choice of either our people go to prison, or we comply with the laws, we’ll comply with the laws.”
Musk didn’t elaborate on what specific Indian laws he was referring to. He made the comment when he was asked by the BBC about Twitter blocking posts related to a BBC documentary on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The documentary, which takes a look at the political journey of PM Modi, has been termed a piece of propaganda by the Indian government.
At the same time, Musk reiterated that he was not aware of the specific details about the documentary. His comments were similar to what he had said earlier when replying to a question tweeted by a Twitter user. When asked about censoring of posts related to the documentary, Musk said, “First, I’ve heard. It is not possible for me to fix every aspect of Twitter worldwide overnight, while still running Tesla and SpaceX, among other things.”
Elon Musk, free speech, Twitter and India
Although Elon Musk often talks about upholding free speech, since acquiring Twitter — and his self-started reason why he bought Twitter has been upholding free speech — Twitter’s actions do not always match the talk.
In several instances, the most recent being the banning of Substack links on the website, Twitter has arbitrarily censured and blocked content. For content and posts related to India too, in recent months, Twitter has seemingly complied every time the government makes a request.
While under the previous management too, Twitter often complied with Indian government requests for content blocking, there were instances when Twitter also pushed back. But under Elon Musk, Twitter seems more willing to comply with content blocking requests it gets.
Just a few days ago, Twitter blocked tweet of an Indian user globally at the request of the Indian government. Blocking of this tweet is one of the rare instances when Twitter has blocked content related to India globally. In previous instances, the social site mostly used region-specific blocks as a way to comply with local laws.
