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Social Networks Twitter Censorship

X Says It's 'Deeply Concerned' About India Press Censorship (aljazeera.com) 37

X said Tuesday it is "deeply concerned about ongoing press censorship in India" after the Indian government ordered the platform to block 2,355 accounts on July 3, including two Reuters news agency handles. The social media company said the order came under India's Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, with non-compliance risking criminal liability.

The Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology demanded immediate action within one hour without providing justification, X said. After public outcry, the government requested X to unblock the Reuters accounts.

X Says It's 'Deeply Concerned' About India Press Censorship

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  • And it never will be.

    • by GoTeam ( 5042081 )

      And it never will be.

      X is not the "press" being talked about in this context. India asked X to block 2,355 accounts which included organizations considered press, such Reuters.

      • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

        India asked twitter accounts to be blocked. Twitter accounts are not press.

        • by Entrope ( 68843 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2025 @12:31PM (#65505556) Homepage

          Ipse dixit is, as usual, not convincing here.

          Does your definition of "press" require a literal printing press?

          • If X isnt press, neither is /. or its comments section. X is more trustworthy than the media. At least X is closer to a free marketplace of ideas. The media are a corporation with a single objective and significant backing. That objective is to deceive you into believing what they want you to believe, without any feedback mechanism to boot. At least shit on X gets trashed appropriately.
        • Twitter accounts are press. Not only are they press in a 4th estate sort of way, they are also press in the "content duplication machine" kind of way. Any way you slice it, they are press.

        • Among the accounts blocked were two Reuters journalists accounts. What they tweet on X probably gets more visibility than their actual reporting for the papers. The idea that it isn't true journalism because of the medium is shallow and pedantic.

    • Re:X is not 'press' (Score:4, Informative)

      by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2025 @11:54AM (#65505384)

      It's not about "free speech" either.

      https://www.pbs.org/newshour/n... [pbs.org]
      https://www.vanityfair.com/new... [vanityfair.com]
      https://www.the-independent.co... [the-independent.com]

      • Re:X is not 'press' (Score:5, Interesting)

        by ihavesaxwithcollies ( 10441708 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2025 @12:04PM (#65505422)
        Leon is the american Goebbels.

        His propaganda efforts aimed to unify the German population behind Nazi ideology, demonize enemies (especially Jews), and maintain morale

        You're probably thinking this is just hyperbole. It is not like leon went to a far right german political event and was the keynote speaker. He never saluted hitler in public. Just a normal old illegal immigrant that loves america too much.

        • by garyisabusyguy ( 732330 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2025 @12:32PM (#65505562)

          The Nazi apparatus leveraged the existing German press, who promoted the idea that Germany was going to win WW1 until they were sold out by the Jewish bankers

          It was this propagandizing through the press that destroyed critical thinking in Germany and allowed Hitler to take over with a constant stream of lies and constant blaming others for Germany's failures

          This is EXTREMELY similar to the effect that Fox News has had on the American right wing and turned them into propagandized idiots who are open to all of Trumps lies and assertion of blame on others

      • https://www.vanityfair.com/new... [vanityfair.com]

        Musk is a corporatist desperately trying to become the first trillionaire. That's the only thing you need to know about him. It also means he is eventually going to extract all the value from the companies he owns. When he does that those companies will collapse. So if you invest in any of his companies you need to be very very careful.
    • Before musk took it over and turned it into a 24/7 Nazi party there was a ton of really really good journalism being done through Twitter. I know it doesn't sound like it and you wouldn't know about it unless you were looking for it but tons of journalists used it to do real time updates on site.

      And I mean actual journalists who followed good journalistic practices and didn't just clickbait. Naturally they would never show up in your feed because well, good journalism doesn't do clickbait and clickbait do
      • Re:Twitter was (Score:4, Insightful)

        by larryjoe ( 135075 ) on Tuesday July 08, 2025 @03:01PM (#65505916)

        As stupid as it sounds we lost a pretty big resource for real and good journalism when musk took over Twitter and that wasn't an accident.

        It used to be that Republicans and conservatives would complain about the liberal bias in news media. Then businessmen like Murdoch realized that he could make a lot of money by pandering to the right wing folks. But at least there were sources across the political spectrum.

        What changed recently was that super rich guys like Musk and Bezos realized that they could use their money to outright buy and control these news sources. Instead of just being annoyed by hearing stuff they didn't like, they realized that they could bend the news to their liking and force it upon others. Not just censoring news and people, but actually creating the news itself.

  • If X is a platform, they should follow the law as applicable to the respective countries and let Reuters deal with the issue.

    If X decides to take on vindictive governments, X will be run out like Tiktok - banned in India completely.

    Not a good business plan.

    • by mysidia ( 191772 )

      If X decides to take on vindictive governments, X will be run out like Tiktok - banned in India completely.

      X should take them on and employ measures to ensure people can still access them regardless of any ISP efforts to block them.

      For example, by making access to X available through a Tor hidden service. And the same approach used for the great firewall of China and other despotic governments intent upon censorship. It's just surprising that India turned out to be one of the bad actors requiring th

  • Two accounts were @Reuters and @ReutersWorld. They are news agency accounts and this is significant. Musk posting publicly about it caused enough of an uproar that New Delhi asked for access to be restored. Meanwhile the only thing discussed here are Cheetos and LEON...

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