| From: Glenn Petersen | 3/27/2023 4:39:59 AM | | | | | | Twitter blocked 122 accounts in India at the government’s request
Last year, before Elon Musk took over as CEO, Twitter pushed back against such requests from the government.
By SAMRIDDHI SAKUNIA
Rest of the World
24 MARCH 2023 • NEW DELHI, INDIA
Twitter has blocked 122 accounts belonging to journalists, authors, and politicians in India this week in response to legal requests from the Indian government. On March 23, the government issued a request for 29 more Twitter accounts to be blocked, as per data on the Lumen database — a collaborative archive which collects legal complaints and requests for removal of online material. The development follows a police crackdown and a subsequent internet shutdown in the north Indian state of Punjab to arrest separatist figure Amritpal Singh Sandhu. The government has declared Sandhu a fugitive and he is on the run. The current internet and SMS suspension in the state, enforced on March 18, affects 27 million people.
The blocked Twitter accounts include those belonging to journalists Pieter Friedrich, Sandeep Singh, Kamaldeep Singh Brar, and Gagandeep Singh; Canadian politician Jagmeet Singh and poet Rupi Kaur; and pro-Khalistan member of parliament Simranjit Singh Mann. A number of these accounts, which include prominent Sikh voices in the diaspora, were putting out credible information amid the current turmoil in Punjab.
The blocked accounts are currently inaccessible in India, and appear as mostly blank pages with a disclaimer reading “[Username]’s account has been withheld in India in response to a legal demand.” According to Twitter’s policy guidelines, such messaging indicates that “Twitter was compelled to withhold the account specified in response to a valid legal demand, such as a court order.”
The Twitter account for Sandeep Singh, an independent journalist, as seen when accessed from India. @punyaab“
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[Twitter CEO Elon] Musk has been quite categorical [in talking about] ‘free speech’ but laws of the land apply, [and] there is a clear contradiction in the statement,” Prateek Waghre, policy director at digital rights advocacy group Internet Freedom Foundation, told Rest of World.
Twitter is the only social media platform to have ever pushed back against similar demands in the past, Waghre noted. “Earlier, it does seem that Twitter did at least push back against some requests [for accounts to be taken down],” he said, adding that there’s no clarity on how many such requests Twitter complied with versus the number it rejected. In June 2022, four months before Musk’s takeover of the company, Twitter had initiated legal action against the Indian government over a series of orders to block content on the platform.
One of the journalists whose account remains inaccessible in India told Rest of World they never received a notification from Twitter informing them of the impending block. “If I tweeted anything that was fake or rumor or hate speech, then the proper case should be registered against me,” they said, requesting anonymity as they didn’t want to publicly comment on an ongoing issue. “Otherwise, the account should be restored with an apology from the government.” All of the journalist’s tweets prior to the block, shared with Rest of World, were news articles or posts on the developments in Punjab.
An independent journalist, requesting anonymity for similar reasons, told Rest of World they received an email from Twitter hours after their account was withheld. The email, viewed by Rest of World, states that Twitter received “a legal removal demand from the Government of India,” and claimed their account “violates India’s Information Technology Act, 2000.” The email further states, “Indian law obligates Twitter to withhold access to this content in India; however, the content remains available elsewhere.”
While blocking accounts in a region isn’t a first for Twitter, the social network would previously issue notices to affected parties. In June 2022, Mohammed Zubair, the founder of Indian fact-checking site Alt News, received an email from Twitter after one of his tweets was flagged by the Delhi Police for violating the Information Technology Act, 2000. However, not only was this tweet not taken down, Twitter’s email read that it “strongly believes in defending and respecting the voice of our users.”
“Some accounts were withheld mid-last year, and reports suggested that Twitter was complying with pending orders … because they were issued with an ultimatum that if they don’t comply with the orders, their chief compliance officer in the country [was liable] for prosecution,” Waghre said.
Twitter’s guidelines indicate that it attempts to notify affected users via their registered email address or through a notification in the app, unless it has been “prohibited” from doing so. The process to overturn a block requires users to respond to Twitter’s email notification — especially in case of a legal demand, such as the one made by the Indian government. But most of the accounts blocked this week never received an email.
Rest of World reached out to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the government’s Department of Legal Affairs for comment, but has yet to receive a response. This story will be updated with responses as and when Rest of World hears from them.
Search for Amritpal Singh prompts Twitter account blocks in India - Rest of World |
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| From: Ron | 3/28/2023 5:44:33 PM | | | | | | Tweet replies no longer show who users are replying to
theverge.com
Maybe you have to pay to see... but no mention of that yet...starting to notice another deterioration:
A lot of tweets no longer carry an image from the link, the user has to upload one, rather like S.I.
which is a recent change. |
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| From: Ron | 3/29/2023 6:37:20 PM | | | | | | Contrary to what Musk has said, Twitter does have a different standard for celebrities. A certain group
get an extra boost- including Musk
archive.ph |
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| From: Glenn Petersen | 3/29/2023 9:44:27 PM | | | | | | Twitter announces new API pricing, including a limited free tier for bots
Old versions of Twitter's API will stop working within 30 days.
Karissa Bell| @karissabe|
Enadget
March 29, 2023 8:52 PM
Twitter has finally confirmed some of the details and pricing for the new version of its API. The company had previously delayed the changes after confirming that it was banning third-party clients as part of a larger shakeup of its developer features.
As expected, the company is maintaining a free tier with limited functionality, though it offers far less than its predecessor. Under the new free tier, which is aimed at bots and other “testing” purposes, accounts can post up to 1,500 tweets a month, but won’t be able to access any other featuires. That may offer a lifeline to some of Twitter’s famed bot accounts, but at about 50 tweets a day, may prove to be too limited for those that post more frequently.
At $100 a month, the new “basic” tier offers a bit more: developers can post up to 3,000 tweets a month at the user level and up to 50,000 a month at the app level. It also offers a read limit of 10,000 tweets a month, which, again, is far less than what was previously offered.
Twitter
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Meanwhile, an enterprise tier is meant for businesses that need a higher level of access, though details for that tier are still murky. According to Twitter’s developer website, the enterprise tier will include “commercial-level access that meets your and your customer's specific needs” and other features. Businesses can apply for enterprise access, but the only pricing information Twitter has disclosed is that there will be "monthly subscription tiers."
It’s also unclear what will happen to researchers and academics who currently rely on Twitter’s API for their work. In a series of tweets, the company said it was “looking at new ways to continue serving this community” but didn’t elaborate. Wired previously reported the company had told some organizations API access could run as much as $42,000 a month, but that plan doesn't seem to have materialized, at least not yet.
The new details also mean that a lot of services using Twitter’s older APIs could soon stop working altogether. The company confirmed that its existing APIs, used by a vast number of developers, researchers and other services, would be deprecated within the next 30 days. “We recommend that you migrate to the new tiers as soon as possible for a smooth transition,” the company said. Though it’s unclear just how many developers will be willing to pay for stripped down versions of the APIs.
Twitter announces new API pricing, including a limited free tier for bots | Engadget |
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