Posted on Jan 30, 2023
Indian government tries to ban documentary about Prime Minister Narendra Modi
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In India, the government is taking extraordinary steps to ban a BBC documentary about Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Officials have invoked emergency powers to scrub the documentary — which explores Modi's role in deadly anti-Muslim riots that killed more than 1,000 people in 2002 — from social media.
Here & Now's Deepa Fernandes talks with Gerry Shih, India Bureau Chief with our partners at the Washington Post.
Here & Now's Deepa Fernandes talks with Gerry Shih, India Bureau Chief with our partners at the Washington Post.
Indian government tries to ban documentary about Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Posted from wbur.org
India
Documentaries
Movies
Journalism
Posted >1 y ago
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PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."This isn’t the first time Twitter has blocked tweets in India. Under its previous ownership, Twitter complied with demands to remove tweets that criticized Modi’s handling of widespread farmers’ protests in India in 2021.
Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk has described himself as a “free speech absolutist,” but he has also said Twitter will comply with local laws in the countries where it operates. Observers have argued that Musk’s ownership of Tesla, which has business interests in India, gives the Indian government extra leverage to force Twitter to comply with censorship demands.
Some observers say that the Modi documentary is the first real test of whether Musk would push back against the Indian government’s censorship demands.
One Twitter user pointed out the apparent contradiction between Musk’s free speech absolutism and Twitter’s compliance with Indian government demands. The user tagged Musk in a tweet that read, “Twitter seems to have gone from ‘freedom of speech, not freedom of reach’ to outright censorship in no time at all.”
“First I’ve heard,” Musk replied Wednesday. “It is not possible for me to fix every aspect of Twitter worldwide overnight, while still running Tesla and SpaceX, among other things.”
As of Thursday, tweets about the documentary remain blocked in India."
..."This isn’t the first time Twitter has blocked tweets in India. Under its previous ownership, Twitter complied with demands to remove tweets that criticized Modi’s handling of widespread farmers’ protests in India in 2021.
Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk has described himself as a “free speech absolutist,” but he has also said Twitter will comply with local laws in the countries where it operates. Observers have argued that Musk’s ownership of Tesla, which has business interests in India, gives the Indian government extra leverage to force Twitter to comply with censorship demands.
Some observers say that the Modi documentary is the first real test of whether Musk would push back against the Indian government’s censorship demands.
One Twitter user pointed out the apparent contradiction between Musk’s free speech absolutism and Twitter’s compliance with Indian government demands. The user tagged Musk in a tweet that read, “Twitter seems to have gone from ‘freedom of speech, not freedom of reach’ to outright censorship in no time at all.”
“First I’ve heard,” Musk replied Wednesday. “It is not possible for me to fix every aspect of Twitter worldwide overnight, while still running Tesla and SpaceX, among other things.”
As of Thursday, tweets about the documentary remain blocked in India."
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