Elon Musk Doesn't Know Twitter Blocks Critical Documentary Content Against Indian PM

Elon Musk admits that social media rules in India are very strict. (photo: dock. twitter)

JAKARTA - On Wednesday, April 12, Elon Musk, CEO of Twitter Inc., admitted that he did not know "what really happened" when Twitter removed content related to a documentary critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this year. Musk also added that some rules related to social media content were "very tight" in India.

In January, the Indian government ordered the blocking of a BBC documentary that questioned Modi's leadership during the Gujarat riots in 2002, and banned sharing any clips through social media.

The Indian government has issued an order to Twitter to block more than 50 tweets linking the documentary video, Kanchan Gupta, a government adviser, said.

"Although the BBC did not broadcast the documentary in India, the video was uploaded on several YouTube channels," Gupta said.

"I don't know about this particular situation... I don't know what happened to the content situation in India," Musk said in an interview with the BBC broadcast live on Twitter Spaces, when asked if the site removed some content at the request of the Indian government.

"The rules in India about what can appear on social media are very strict and we cannot go beyond state law," he said.

The documentary focuses on Modi's leadership as chief minister of western Gujarat state during the riots in 2002 in which at least 1,000 people were killed, most of them Muslim citizens.

Activists estimate the number of victims is more than double the official figure.

"If we have to choose between our people going to prison or we comply with the law, we will comply with the law..." Musk said.

India's regulatory oversight of various US technology companies such as Twitter, Facebook's WhatsApp, and Amazon.com Inc., has damaged the business environment in key growth markets, so several companies are reviewing their expansion plans, Reuters reported.

Indian authorities have previously asked Twitter to act against content such as accounts supporting the independent Sikh state, posts suspected of spreading misinformation about farmer protests, and tweets critical of the government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.