Headline Roundup • January 26th, 2023
Twitter, Elon Musk Face Questions Over Censorship of BBC Documentary
Free Speech,Technology,Social Media,Elon Musk,Twitter,YouTube,Google,India,Narendra Modi,Censorship,World,Big Tech
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Twitter and Elon Musk are facing questions over censorship of a BBC (Center bias) documentary that criticizes Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Key Quotes: “The government has sent hundreds of requests to different social media platforms, especially YouTube and Twitter, to take down the posts that share snippets or links to the documentary,” Indian journalist Raqib Hameed Naik told The Intercept. “And shamefully, the companies are complying with their demands and have taken down numerous videos and posts.”
For Context: Twitter and YouTube have blocked all links to the film, India: The Modi Question, within India. Musk said he was unaware of the censorship until a Twitter user pointed it out to him. The two-part documentary series examines Modi's role in the 2002 Gujarat riots. Authorities have moved to block screenings of the film at several Indian colleges and universities, leading to protests and skirmishes between students and police.
How the Media Covered it: Very few right-rated sources covered Twitter's censorship of the BBC documentary. It was a bigger story from left- and center-rated outlets, several of which said Musk had proven to be a hypocrite by "caving" to government censorship requests.
Featured Coverage of this Story
MARLENA SLOSS—BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES
Late on Wednesday, the Twitter CEO said he was not aware of the social media platform’s decision to censor links to a BBC documentary critical of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, implying he was stretched in running multiple companies at once.
“It is not possible for me to fix every aspect of Twitter worldwide overnight, while still running Tesla and SpaceX,” he tweeted.
Musk is the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter, and is also involved in brain computer startup Neuralink. Some of Musk’s shareholders have grumbled over his simultaneous leadership of multiple companies, with some Tesla investors...
Elon Musk has caved in to pressure from India and removed a BBC documentary criticising PM Narendra Modi from Twitter.
The two-part documentary, India: The Modi Question, has not been broadcast in India by the BBC, but the nation's federal government blocked it over the weekend and banned people from sharing clips on social media, citing emergency powers under its information technology laws.
Twitter and YouTube were ordered by the Indian government to block all links to the film within the country, Kanchan Gupta, a senior adviser in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, said Tuesday.
...
Sajjad Hussain/AFP via Getty Images
TWITTER AND YOUTUBE censored a report critical of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in coordination with the government of India. Officials called for the Big Tech companies to take action against a BBC documentary exploring Modi’s role in a genocidal 2002 massacre in the Indian state of Gujarat, which the officials deemed a “propaganda piece.”
In a series of posts, Kanchan Gupta, senior adviser at the Indian government’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, denounced the BBC documentary as “hostile propaganda and anti-India garbage.” He said that both Twitter and YouTube had...
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