Cyrano wrote:bharathp wrote:
that logic applies backwards too. twitter cannot delete/deplatform folks without a court order.
Err not exactly.
Twitter seems to say, just because the order comes from a democratically elected govt, it doesn't automatically mean such demand is as per that country's laws. They are right there. Imagine for ex, say an Imran Khan govt orders closing down of all Ahmediya's accounts. Or if it were Manmohan Singh era, and the govt orders pro-Hindu account shutdown. Should Twitter automatically comply ?
OTOH a court order is equal to law because well, who can challenge the interpreter of law itself or the jurisprudence such court orders would create? They would be binding by default. So to that extent they are right. However, walking that talk is a wholly different matter.
The funny part starts here: If Twitter opines that a Govt order is not as per the country's laws (based on what doesn't matter, its internal guidelines are equal to toilet paper as far as Govts or courts are concerned), and decides not to comply 100%, it will be opening itself up to penalties, fines, jail time for officers, or being stopped from doing business altogether, or whatever a Govt decides to do. Twitter can of course challenge such orders in court and get a stay order, like any business, until then it has to comply.
If a Govt wants to go after twitter they can just issue a bunch of orders against it forcing it to either A. Fight numerous legal battles B. Shut shop since business is unviable in such conditions or C. Comply.
Depending on how Twitter or any other SM platform see their business in a country (at a point of time and future potential), they will take the suitable option. For ex, they may take option A. in the US, B. in Pakistan/China C. in India.
No matter how many "guardians of free speech" crowns they bestow upon themselves, SM platforms are BUSINESSES FOR PROFIT like every other company and as such don't deserve special dispensations. They have also consistently refused to be categorised as "PUBLISHERS" since that would make them liable for what they (or any user may) publish on their platform. They pretend to be some heaven sent gift to mankind because they know they can quickly spread information (right or wrong) and swing public opinion very fast. But that capacity doesn't confer on them any moral authority. Wont be such a big loss to humanity if they (all) fold.
The elected govt gives the orders and twitter complies, period. Matters like law, public order and/or national security are trumps in this business and each elected govt plays the game in its own way.
twitter cannot foment strife or direct the direction of discourse or encourage revolution in the name of some woke imported leftist shyte that confirms to some evil concept of americanized, secularized and liberalized "free" speech.
Foolishly, we once allowed the britshits to run amok with a very similar and equally malevolent concept and macaulization was the result and see where it has got us today.
twitter is merely a service provider and it entered India as such, meaning it simply does not have a seat at any high table in India. Gradually it has appropriated for itself editorial powers and positioned itself as an arbiter and opinion maker by the use of selective banning, deplatforming and blue tick distinction to forcibly insert itself into the defining, making, shaping and the driving of woke political ideologies trying once again to bring about macaulization, only this time, it's the ameriki version.
or, alternatively, jack on crack takes his bat and ball and goes back home
if twitter has any doubts, it can urgently take it up with the Indian courts.
It cannot delay, obfuscate, second guess in any way, or otherwise deny the implementation of the govt's orders on some woke pretexts based on some inappropriate ameriki "amendments" on "free speech"
the guys who are banned on the govt's orders can always seek redress from the Indian courts, if they were so inclined.
twitter is now trying to appropriate to itself, what it thinks that the Indian courts ought to be doing in such cases.
It very conveniently or even arrogantly forgets that it has no de jure or de facto powers in the sovereign republic of India and it is, at the end of day, just another grubby profit making commercial enterprise incorporated in the US and it is presuming to talk down to a third world, non white, pagan and a native govt that it imagines is less evolved than the ones jack on crack is normally used to dealing with.
we need to realize as well as understand that twitter, facebook et al are the new and venomously malignant versions of the east India company. They are the
omnipresent digital versions insidiously adapted for smooth cross border access without too obviously ruffling cultural feathers, and so, decolonization is the need of the hour.
The talk in the US of breaking up large companies like google, twitter, facebook is just like what the crown did to the east India company when they took it over completely. Smaller companies simply cannot afford to annoy the governments and hope to get away with it.
Trump's ill advised and illegal deplatforming is a desperate attempt to head off this surely coming breakup of such powerful monopolies by placating the biden regime.
the chinese got it right when they banned all such attempts to infiltrate their rigidly controlled media space and have thus minimized the socio sensitive assault on their national ecosystem, and rightly or wrongly, instead of informed regulation they went all out to ban external influences.