by ARIF RAFIQ
Whistleblower case highlights the dangers of allowing the Indian government to get too close to social media providers
A whistleblower complaint by ex-Twitter security chief Peiter Zatko, revealed last week, includes alarming allegations that the Indian government forced the social media platform to hire government agents who had access to sensitive user data because of Twitter’s weak security structure.
India has the world’slargest number of Facebook users, and its platforms, including WhatsApp, have been deployed by Hindu extremist networks
Twitter, which did not respond to Middle East Eye’s request for comment, has publicly rejected Zatko’s complaint as a “false narrative“, but has yet to explicitly address the allegations about the hiring of Indian government agents.
While Zatko’s allegations have not yet been verified, the reference to “government agents could be related to the draconian internet regulations enacted by the Indian government in February 2021.
These rules – triggered partly by Twitter’s clash with New Delhi over demands that it remove accounts in support of anti-government protesters – require large social media companies to employ Indian citizens in three government-mandated positions, including a law enforcement liaison.
The new rules make one of those officials – the chief compliance officer – criminally liable if he or she, for example, does not follow a court order to identify the “first originator” of messages that undermine the “sovereignty” of the Indian state.
That these employees must be Indian citizens who physically reside in the country and face the possibility of arrest is why critics have dubbed such rules “hostage-taking laws“. They compel local employees to partake in the censorship of voices hostile to those in power.
But Zatko’s allegations go beyond the very public attempts at censorship by India, which led the world in internet shutdowns in 2020. India’s Hindu nationalist government has been clamping down on public expression, especially by Muslim minorities and dissident voices.
Surveilling dissidents
In recent years, India has intensified the use of colonial-era sedition laws and newer counterterrorism powers to charge or arrest activists and journalists, such as Asif Sultan, Fahad Shah and Masrat Zahra. The allegations made by Zatko raise serious questions about whether New Delhi has inside access within Twitter – and potentially other social media platforms – through these mandated officers or other employees, enabling the surveillance of dissidents in India and Kashmir, as well as critics abroad.
If that is indeed the case, and if the Indian government has access to sensitive user data such as phone numbers, IP addresses and direct messages, it could use Twitter as a surveillance tool to target dissidents and other vulnerable groups.
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