With just days to go for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, a few posts by Indian political parties and leaders have been taken down by X (formerly Twitter) at the behest of the Election Commission of India (ECI).
The platform on Tuesday, 16 April, revealed that it complied with orders issued by the ECI to take down posts from the official handles of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) as well as former Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu and Bihar Deputy CM Samrat Choudhary
"In compliance with the orders, we have withheld these posts for the remainder of the election period; however, we disagree with these actions and maintain that freedom of expression should extend to these posts and political speech in general," X said in a post.
"We have notified the affected users and in the interest of transparency, we are publishing the takedown orders here. We call on the Election Commission to publish all of its takedown orders going forward," it added.
Interestingly, the disclosure by the Elon Musk-owned platform comes a week ahead of the billionaire's visit to India where he is expected to meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
What Were the Blocked Posts About?
According to the ECI's takedown orders disclosed by X, the blocked posts directly violated provisions of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) and a March advisory sent by the poll agency to political parties on the "expected decorum" to be maintained while campaigning.
But what exactly did these blocked posts say?
The official handle of AAP (@AamAadmiParty) on 18 March, posted a photo of PM Modi along with the headline of an article by The Quint that read: 'ED Arrested Aurobindo Pharma's Director. 5 Days Later, It Bought Electoral Bonds'.
In its takedown order dated 2 April, the Election Commission said that AAP's post criticising PM Modi over the electoral bonds scheme had violated Clause 2 of Part 1 of the MCC, which reads:
"Criticism of other political parties, when made, shall be confined to their policies and programme, past record and work. Parties and Candidates shall refrain from criticism of all aspects of private life, not connected with the public activities of the leaders or workers of other parties. Criticism of other parties or their workers based on unverified allegations or distortion shall be avoided."
It also said that the post violated the March advisory that states, "No aspect of the private life, not connected with the public activities, of the leaders or workers of other parties is to be criticized. Low level personal attacks to insult the rivals shall not be made."
The ECI-ordered takedown of AAP's electoral bond post was criticised by the Congress. Speaking to reporters in a press conference on Wednesday, 17 April, the party's social media head Supriya Shrinate said she was "surprised" that the ECI had ordered a post that raised the issue of electoral bonds to be deleted.
"Why would they do that? One does not understand but obviously electoral bonds is an issue which makes the government extremely uncomfortable," Shrinate said. “I do want to raise that there is a pattern as far as social media platforms are concerned,” she added.
Content Removal Request issued by Election Commission of India to X.
(Photo Courtesy: X/@GlobalAffairs)
In Chandrababu Naidu's case, the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief was said to have violated the MCC when he posted from his X handle (@ncbn) alleging that the ruling party in the state was involved in a CBI drug bust.
The now-withheld post by BJP Bihar president Samrat Choudhary similarly levelled corruption allegations against Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad Yadav. However, YSRCP's post which was ordered to be taken down by the ECI has been deleted by the party.
Voluntary Guidelines for Platforms During Polls
Notably, social media platforms may not be bound by law to comply with takedown orders issued by the Election Commission for posts violating the Model Code of Conduct.
Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, a self-regulatory 'Voluntary Code of Ethics' was formulated and adopted by platforms after a meeting with Election Commission officials and representatives from Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Google, and ShareChat, among others.
Some of the requirements for platforms under the 'Voluntary Code of Ethics' include setting up a reporting mechanism for ECI officials, facilitating access to voter information, building awareness through campaigns, ensuring transparency in paid political advertising, and more.
"Participants and the Election Commission of India (ECI) have developed a notification mechanism by which the ECI can notify the relevant platforms of potential violations of Section 126 of the Representation of People Act, 1951 and other applicable electoral laws in accordance with procedures established by law. These valid legal orders will be acknowledged and/or processed within three hours for violations reported under 126 as per the Sinha Committee recommendations," the code reads.
"All other valid legal requests will be acted upon expeditiously by the Participants, based on the nature of reported violation," it further adds.
For context, the Election Commission had reportedly wanted to bring about a separate regulatory framework for platforms. However, according to leaked whistleblower documents, social media companies like Meta (then Facebook) successfully lobbied the poll body to settle for voluntary guidelines instead.
It's also worth mentioning that X earlier used to voluntarily share takedown orders from governments with the Lumen Database. The ECI orders put out by the platform on Tuesday is a first since April 2023.
Update, 18 April 2024: This report was updated to include remarks from Congress' social media head Supriya Shrinate.
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