X admits taking down Indian Farmers Protest Posts

Social media platform X has admitted to taking down accounts and posts related to the ongoing Indian farmers’ protest.

The official account of X’s Global Government Affairs team said:

“The Indian government has issued executive orders requiring X to act on specific accounts and posts, subject to potential penalties including significant fines and imprisonment.

“In compliance with the orders, we will withhold these accounts and posts in India alone.

“However, we disagree with these actions and maintain that freedom of expression should extend to these posts.”

Several activists had previously complained about their posts being removed.

Indian journalist Mohammed Zubair said “many influential X accounts” of reporters, influencers and prominent farm unionists covering the farmers’ protest in India were “suspended”.

Meanwhile, journalist Mandeep Punia said his account and Gaon Savera’s have been withheld.

He said: “We are professional journalists covering rural India. We are reporting from the ground and the government doesn’t want that.

“The government is blocking our voice, but equally this also affects our livelihood, our means of earning a living.”

X has also said it has legally challenged the government’s “blocking orders”, without specifying which court they had petitioned.

India’s Congress Party has criticised the government for the clampdown, accusing it of trying to silence dissenting voices in a democratic country.

Several farm unions in India have been on strike since February 13, 2024, seeking floor pricing, which is also called minimum support price, for their crops.

Protestors have been attempting to march to Delhi.

But the authorities have heavily barricaded the city borders with barbed wire and cement blocks to stop them.

Indian farmers are using homemade kites to counter drones used by the police.

Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, which are ruled by the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have deployed a large number of police and paramilitary troops to stop the farmers from reaching Delhi.

According to activists, farmers are a major voting bloc in India and the government does not want a protest spectacle on the streets, especially with the upcoming general elections.

In 2020, a similar protest took place and went on for more than a year.

While the government has held several rounds of talks with the unions to quell the protests, no consensus has been reached yet.

On February 21, a 22-year-old protestor died during a reported standoff with Haryana police.