Elon Musk often boasts that X, formerly Twitter, is the only place where one can freely say whatever they want. Freedom of speech is important to Musk, it would seem, but it appears that this is not the case after all. Namely, X has acknowledged that it removed accounts and posts related to the ongoing farmers’ protests in India.
X stated that it removed the accounts and posts after the Indian government sent them ‘executive orders’ that were ‘subject to potential penalties, including imprisonment,’ X said in a statement, adding that it ‘disagrees with these actions.’
X’s clarification was shared on their official handle @GlobalAffairs.
—
—
Several activists had previously complained about the removal of their posts. Indian journalist Mohammed Zubair wrote on Monday that ‘many influential X accounts’ of journalists, influencers, and prominent farmer union leaders who reported on the farmers’ protests in India were suspended.
In its clarification, X stated that the mentioned accounts and posts were suspended only in India ‘in accordance with the orders.’ They added that the platform disagrees with the actions of the Indian government but still complied with the ‘order.’ The platform also stated that it has legally challenged the government’s ‘blocking orders,’ without specifying which court they filed the request with.
The main Indian opposition party criticized the government for the restrictions, accusing it of trying to silence dissenting voices in a democratic country.
Several farmer unions in India have been on strike since February 13, demanding minimum prices, also known as minimum support prices, for their crops. Protesters attempted to march to the capital of India, Delhi, from neighboring states Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh. However, authorities firmly barricaded the city borders with barbed wire and concrete blocks to stop them. The states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, governed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), deployed a large number of police and paramilitary forces to prevent farmers from reaching Delhi.
Activists say that farmers are a major voting bloc in India and that the government does not want a protest spectacle, with farmers on tractors and other vehicles on the roads in Delhi, especially with general elections scheduled for the next few months.
In 2020, farmers began a similar protest and ‘lived’ at the borders of Delhi for months, and the government does not want that to happen again. Although the government has held several rounds of talks with the unions to quell the protests, no consensus has yet been reached.
