Elon Musk widens censorship...And today's Counter Points show...
An interview with Sierra Leonean journalist Chernoh Bah on the Ebola outbreak
Scroll down for the the link to today’s Counter Points.
Two months after teaming up with the Indian government to censor a BBC documentary on human rights abuses by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Twitter is yet again collaborating with India to impose an extraordinarily broad crackdown on speech.
Last week, the Indian government imposed an internet blackout across the northern state of Punjab, home to 30 million people, as it conducted a manhunt for a local Sikh nationalist leader, Amritpal Singh. The shutdown paralyzed internet and SMS communications in Punjab (some Indian users told The Intercept that the shutdown was targeted at mobile devices).
While Punjab police detained hundreds of suspected followers of Singh, Twitter accounts from over 100 prominent politicians, activists, and journalists in India and abroad have been blocked in India at the request of the government. On Monday, the account of the BBC News Punjabi was also blocked — the second time in a few months that the Indian government has used Twitter to throttle BBC services in its country. The Twitter account for Jagmeet Singh (no relation to Amritpal), a leading progressive Sikh Canadian politician and critic of Modi, was also not viewable inside India.
Under the leadership of owner and CEO Elon Musk, Twitter has promised to reduce censorship and allow a broader range of voices on the platform. But after The Intercept reported on Musk’s censorship of the BBC documentary in January, as well as Twitter’s intervention against high-profile accounts who shared it, Musk said that he had been too busy to focus on the issue. “First I’ve heard,” Musk wrote on January 25. “It is not possible for me to fix every aspect of Twitter worldwide overnight, while still running Tesla and SpaceX, among other things.”
Two months later, he still hasn’t found the time. Musk had previously pledged to step down as Twitter CEO, but no public progress has been made since his announcement.
While Modi’s suppression has focused on Punjab, Twitter’s collaboration has been nationwide, restricting public debate about the government’s aggressive move. Critics say that the company is failing the most basic test of allowing the platform to operate freely under conditions of government pressure.
“In India, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media companies have today become handmaidens to authoritarianism,” said Arjun Sethi, a human rights lawyer and adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center. “They routinely agree to requests not just to block social media accounts not just originating in India, but all over the world.”
Punjab was site of a brutal government counterinsurgency campaign in the ’80s and ’90s that targeted a separatist movement that sought to create an independent state for Sikhs. More recently, Punjab was the site of massive protests by farmers groups against bills to deregulate agricultural markets. The power struggles between the government and resistance movements have fueled repressive conditions on the ground.
“Punjab is a de facto police state,” said Sukhman Dhami, co-director of Ensaaf, a human rights organization focused on Punjab. “Despite being one of the tiniest states in India, it has one of the highest density of police personnel, stations and checkpoints — as is typical of many of India’s minority-majority states — as well as a huge number of military encampments because it shares a border with Pakistan and Kashmir.”
Modi’s Hindu nationalist government has justified its efforts to arrest followers of Amritpal Singh by claiming that he was promoting separatism and “disturbing communal harmony” in recent speeches.
In late February, Singh’s followers sacked a Punjab police station in an attempt to free allies held there. The Indian media reported that the attack triggered the government’s response.
FULL STORY WITH MURTAZA HUSSAIN HERE
On Counter Points today, we talked about Chris Christie’s pitiful foray into the 2024 GOP presidential contest; the new law aimed at blocking TikTok that does way, way more than that; the Supreme Court’s preposterous decision not to hear Steven Donziger’s appeal, and the genuinely good dissents from Neil Gorsuch (!) and Brett Kavanaugh (!); the reinstated conviction of Adnan Syed and why it’s a bad thing for the rights of the accused; Ruhle’s conflicts; Musk’s censorship; and an in-studio interview with Sierra Leonean journalist Chernoh Bah, author of the book The Ebola Outbreak in West Africa: Corporate Gangsters, Multinationals, and Rogue Politicians.
Several of those segments will be posted on YouTube later today, and all of them will be available in podcast form on whatever platform you use (search Breaking Points to find it). A link to the full, ad-free show, along with timestamps, is below for subscribers.
Counter Points is the left-right morning show I co-host on Wednesdays with Emily Jashinsky. We produce about eight segments, a few of which are posted on Wednesday, then most of the rest roll out through the weekend.
It’s part of the Breaking Points network, which produces a daily, independent morning news show with two presenters, one left and one right, and we don’t really argue as much as offer different takes on the news. If you want daily ad-free access to the full show Monday through Friday, it’s $10 a month (and includes Counter Points). If you just want Counter Points for now, subscribe here. Links here:
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