AsiaNet-Pakistan Premier Editorial Content and Press Release Distribution Service
New York, October 26, 2019 (PPI-OT): New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has said that Twitter at the behest of the Indian government has blocked nearly a million tweets from accounts that focus on Kashmir. According to Kashmir Media Service, a study by the CPJ revealed that almost 100 accounts were also made inaccessible to the residents of the occupied territory in the last two years, spurring claims that Twitter is contradicting the very values it purports to uphold.
The study maintained that Twitter agreed to block more accounts in occupied Kashmir than in every other country combined. Data released by Twitter to Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center and its Lumen project, which was then published publicly and analyzed by the CPJ, showed that legal notices to the company directing them to take down tweets or accounts started to spike in August of 2017. Since that time, Twitter agreed to uphold 131 of the 4,722 requests from Indian officials to remove content.
“It totally makes sense the Indian government would go after Twitter and Twitter users, because Twitter as a platform is a really significant source of information sharing for journalists and activists and regular citizens in Kashmir,” David Kaye, the UN special rapporteur for Freedom of Opinion and Expression, told CPJ.
David Kaye has previously expressed his concerns about Twitter’s opaque policy of removing content related to Kashmir at the behest of India, writing a letter to CEO, Jack Dorsey, in 2018 stating that the company needs to do more to challenge Indian censorship. Experts told the CPJ that Twitter could do more to fight the legal notices in court – an avenue, the experts said, has not been explored. Among those silenced in the last two years were the news outlets – The Kashmir Narrator and The Voice Kashmir.
For more information, contact:
Kashmir Media Service
Phone: +92-51-4435548, +92-51-4435549
Fax: +92-51-4861736
Email: info@kmsnews.org
Website: www.kmsnews.org