New Delhi: Fact-checker and journalist Mohammed Zubair has posted an email from social media giant X that says that the Delhi Police has flagged his account and asked the platform to either take down particular content or his whole account.
Zubair, who frequently posts takedowns of false information on X, is the co-founder of the fact-checking platform Alt News. He has 1.1 million followers on the platform.
He had in 2022 been arrested by Delhi police for a 2018 tweet in which he shared a screenshot from a 1983 Hindi movie, which police claimed “hurt religious sentiments.” Six cases were slapped on him during the period of his incarceration until the Supreme Court granted him bail.
Got an email from @X claiming it has received a request from Delhi Police regarding my X account. They want X to take down my account as it violates India’s Information Technology Act. pic.twitter.com/kglznyKXCR
— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) June 12, 2024
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The screenshot of the email from X that Zubair has posted on the site is an excerpt from a routine notification that X sends to account holders on whose handles it receives removal requests.
“In the interest of transparency, we are writing to inform you that X has received a request from Delhi Police regarding your X account, @zoo_bear, that claims the following content violates India’s Information Technology Act.”
It is not clear from the screenshot and X’s message if the whole account is being regarded as violative of the IT Act or a particular post.
X said that it has not taken any action on the reported content yet.
Zubair has written, “They want X to take down my account as it violates India’s Information Technology Act.”
In 2023, Twitter founder and former owner Jack Dorsey revealed in an online interview that the Narendra Modi government made “many requests” to it during the farmers’ protests for the deletion of content by journalists critical of official policy and also threatened to shut down Twitter in India and raid its employees’ homes.
Under Elon Musk, the site has been significantly more compliant with government orders for censorship or surveillance – including from India.
