India's internet kill-switch: Grave violations in Kashmir seep into social media

“I was trying to make a film that spoke for Kashmiris silenced by the Indian Government, but instead, the Indian government silenced my voice and ordered YouTube to block my film for viewers in India,” begins Sandeep Ravindranath, a documentary filmmaker.

His newly released short film Anthem for Kashmir is a ten-minute presentation of human rights violations in the Kashmir Valley, but although Ravindranath doesn’t know why the Indian Government ordered the social media streaming service to block his film, he says it’s obvious the “government wanted to intimidate me into silence and erase my work.”

“A ten-minute short film that threatens the sovereignty, integrity and defence of a mighty nuclear state, evidently,” he scoffed.

"Social media companies are helping anti-democratic and authoritarian regimes shut down the ability of persecuted and oppressed populations to put into words and images their suffering and torment"

This is hardly surprising, given India’s plummeting ranking in the World Press Freedom Index, having fallen to 142nd place during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reign, which is built upon the sowing of anti-Muslim animus among the country’s Hindu majority.

But what is alarming is the willingness of social media platforms to comply with these anti-democratic demands, particularly with the lives of Muslim minorities on the line, remembering experts have warned of an impending Muslim genocide in India and Kashmir.

To put it bluntly – social media platforms are not only becoming a hostile place for Muslims to share stories about their lives, but also a shrinking space for them to engage, politically.

When accounts belonging to Muslims aren’t subjected to an astonishing amount of online racist hate, with a new study finding four million anti-Muslim posts made on Twitter during a 24-month period spanning 2017 to 2019, then they’re being blocked and banned for expressing their political views, particularly those critical of powerful governments, such as the United States, Israel, and India.

"Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram have failed to act on 89% of posts containing anti-Muslim hatred reported to them"

Put another way, social media companies are slapping Muslim journalists, artists, academics, and human rights defenders with suspension and account withheld notices for expressing reasonable political views, while at the same time doing nothing to remove anti-Muslim content from their platform, as highlighted by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), which found that Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram have failed to act on 89 percent of posts containing anti-Muslim hatred reported to them.

Social media companies have also been accused of withholding accounts of journalists and activists who report anti-Muslim hate crimes, as Twitter did recently in banning my account in India following a complaint by the Indian Government over my reporting of anti-Muslim violence in the South Asian country – a move condemned by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which stated, “Journalism is not a crime.”

For Muslim journalists and activists in India and Kashmir, however, journalism has indeed become a crime, as illustrated by the arrest of prominent Indian Muslim journalist Mohammed Zubair, who was charged with “hurting religious sentiments” in June, after an anonymous user on Twitter reported him for using satire from a Hindi movie in a 2018 tweet.

He was released from custody, but only after the Supreme Court intervened to scold government authorities in Uttar Pradesh, saying, “The power of arrests must be pursued sparingly.”

"India leads the world in internet shutdowns and uses fake news, including a network of at least 265 fake news outlets, to amplify their interests. American technology companies are often willing accomplices"

Worse – social media companies are not only coddling the Indian Government’s crackdown on Muslims but also Israel’s continued human rights abuses against the Palestinian people.

Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, of censoring and removing content documenting human rights abuses committed by Israel during the May 2021 Israeli military operations on Gaza, therefore depriving Palestinians of their freedom of expression while being bombed by Israeli warplanes during the two week period of hostilities.

HRW said the censoring of content related to human rights abuses "particularly during periods of violence,” is especially harmful to human rights, but this is not the first time the human rights organization has called out social media companies for silencing Palestinian account users at the behest of the Israeli Government.

Equally, Kashmiri journalists and activists have been censored and blocked on social media platforms at the behest of the Indian Government, prompting David Kaye, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinions and Expression, to pen a public letter to former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, accusing the social media company of withholding users’ tweets and accounts “when they have participated in discussions concerning Kashmir on the platform.

"Without social media, the repressed remain invisible and unheard, which spells dire news for Muslim populations in India, Kashmir, Palestine, and elsewhere"

He also accused the Indian Government of expanding “the scope of its censorship tools and efforts at the expense of individual rights to freedom of expression, access to information, freedom of association and other fundamental human rights.”

Meanwhile, the Indian Government uses social media platforms to push its own propaganda.

“India leads the world in internet shutdowns and uses fake news, including a network of at least 265 fake news outlets, to amplify their interests. American technology companies are often willing accomplices,” says Ravindranath.

Essentially, social media companies are helping anti-democratic and authoritarian regimes shut down the ability of persecuted and oppressed populations to put into words and images their suffering and torment, which is why these same regimes go to extraordinary lengths to limit or ban their citizen’s access to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.

They know better than anyone else that without social media, the repressed remain invisible and unheard, which spells dire news for Muslim populations in India, Kashmir, Palestine, and elsewhere.

Surely, these mega-billion-dollar companies accept they have a duty of care. Surely, they are acutely aware of how illiberal regimes have weaponised anti-Muslim hatred and violence to advance their political goals. Surely, they understand Facebook faces compensation claims worth more than £150 billion for failing to prevent the incitement of violence and genocide in Myanmar.

If they are aware of all this, then surely – they must start acting like it.

CJ Werleman is the author of Crucifying America, God Hates You, Hate Him Back and Koran Curious, and is the host of Foreign Object.

Follow him on Twitter: @cjwerleman