India, an aspiring digital superpower, keeps shutting down the internet
Connectivity blackouts are damaging to millions of Indians reliant on digital services
ON July 1st Elon Musk caused a stir by limiting the number of tweets visible to Twitter users in a single day. Perhaps he was inspired by the High Court of Karnataka, a big south-Indian state, which the day before had issued its own argument for restricting tweets. On June 30th the court ruled against Twitter in a case challenging the constitutionality of an Indian government demand, in 2022, to block content and several accounts critical of it. The court fined Twitter 5m rupees ($61,000) for failing to comply with that demand.
This article appeared in the Asia section of the print edition under the headline “Blocked and reported!”
From the July 8th 2023 edition
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