12 Jun 24 | Asia and Pacific, India, News and features
As Prime Minister Narendra Modi readies for his third term, he formally took the oath of office on Sunday, casting a shadow over the nation’s landscape of free speech and press freedom. With each successive term, Modi’s administration has faced criticism for tightening control over the media and curbing dissenting voices, with instances of journalists and activists facing harassment, intimidation, and even legal action for criticisng the government or expressing views contrary to the official narrative.
India’s extensive six-week election period concluded with a tally of 640 million votes on 4 June. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP-led NDA (National Democratic Alliance) secured an outright majority by winning 292 seats out of the 543 seats, surpassing the 272 seats required for a clear majority in India’s lower house of Parliament.
Meer Faisal, a 23-year-old journalist and the founder of The Observer Post, an online news portal based in Delhi, holds little optimism regarding Modi’s government when it comes to censorship and freedom of expression in India. He has faced significant censorship in the past during Modi’s tenure for his coverage on atrocities against Muslims in India. In October last year, his Twitter account faced restrictions in India due to his reporting.
“As a journalist, especially being a Muslim, it invites more censorship and trouble. The Modi government aims to silence every voice that speaks against them. They want to build a narrative in the country and label everyone who criticises government policies as anti-national,” said Faisal.
Faisal is among many in India who express fear concerning Modi’s third term, citing concerns beyond censorship to include threats to freedom of speech.
Since August 2019, the Modi government has also barred many Kashmiri journalists from travelling abroad, offering no explanation for restricting their fundamental rights.
“In Modi’s third term, I fear that there will be more harsh policies against journalists and more tactics will be employed to intimidate us. This will directly impact our reporting abilities and help authorities in curbing the voice of people,” said Faisal.
In the 2024 edition of the Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders, India is ranked 159th out of the 180 nations considered. “With violence against journalists, highly concentrated media ownership, and political alignment, press freedom is in crisis in “the world’s largest democracy”, ruled since 2014 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and embodiment of the Hindu nationalist right,” RSF stated while releasing the data.
Asif Mujtaba, 34, an advocate for people’s rights and director of the Miles2smile Foundation—which works with survivors of mob lynching, communal violence, and selective communal demolition—believes that the space for dissent has significantly decreased since Modi came to power, and public participation in protests has also diminished.
“It’s become a tough task for social and political activists, regardless of any religion, to work for people’s rights under Modi’s regime. The government can use any stringent law to frame you and silence your voice,” saidMujtaba.
According to Mujtaba, many people in India are apprehensive about openly criticising Modi because they are aware of the potential repercussions. A significant number of individuals who were once vocal against the regime have now become quiet..
“Modi’s administration is aware of the escalating dissent and the potential for increased protests against their policies in the third term. The growing public dissent will force Modi to resort to heavy-handed tactics to silence the people,” said Mujtaba.
In the first four months of 2024, India has experienced at least 134 instances of free speech violation, impacting journalists, academics, YouTubers, and students, according to a report published by the Free Speech Collective in early May. The organisation tracks and categorises free speech violations and offers support to those affected.
Niranjan K S, 22, a fourth-year law student at Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi, and a member of the All India Revolutionary Students Organisation (AIRSO), argues that the suppression of dissent is driven by the corporate-Hindutva fascist nexus, which aims to transform the country into a fascist dictatorship. As a result, free speech will be stifled, and only those who support the ruling forces will retain their right to free expression.
“The surge in the enforcement of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and the uptick in political detentions, particularly aimed at students and activists like Sharjeel Imam and Umar Khalid, who were involved in the anti-CAA protests of 2019, demonstrate a systematic use of these draconian laws to quash all forms of dissent,” said Niranjan.
During the protests, students played an active role in amplifying the voices of the oppressed within the country. However, the BJP regime labeled these students as “anti-national” and “terrorists,” attempting to delegitimise their activism and dissent.
Niranjan emphasised that secularism and communal harmony are already under significant threat due to the Hindutva ideology of the current regime, which could further hinder free speech. “In this third term of the Modi government, the non-state elements of fascism will be more utilised to advance their offensive than the state elements,” said Niranjan.
Index on Censorship sought a response from a BJP spokesperson regarding censorship as Modi embarks on his historic third term. Answer came there none.
06 Jun 24 | Asia and Pacific, India, News and features
In India, the largest practical exercise in electoral politics the world has ever seen has just come to an end. Narendra Modi and his BJP party has been returned to power for an unprecedented third term, although without an outright majority. While there are many priorities facing the new administration, one of them will undoubtedly be modernising India’s outdated online regulatory framework.
The growth of internet access in India has been exponential. According to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), in 2000 5.5 million Indians were online; last year that number was 850 million. To look at India’s increasing economic and geopolitical clout is to also see a country willing to take on the tech giants to control India’s image online. The Indian government has not tiptoed around calling for platforms such as X and YouTube to remove content or accounts. According to the Washington Post, “records published by the Indian Parliament show that annual takedown requests for posts and accounts increased from 471 to 6,775 between 2014 and 2022, with those to Twitter soaring from 224 in 2018 to 3,417 in 2022.”
India’s online regulatory regime is over 20 years old and with the proliferation of online users and the emergence of new technologies, its age is starting to show. India is not alone in wrestling with this complex issue – just look at the Online Safety Act in the UK, the Digital Services Act (DSA) for the EU, as well as the ongoing discussions around Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in the USA. Following the election, the current government has confirmed its intention to update and expand the regulation of online platforms, through the ambitious Digital India Act (DIA).
The DIA is intended to plug the regulatory gap and while the need is apparent, the devil will be in the detail. MeitY has stated that while the internet has empowered citizens, it has “created challenges in the form of user harm; ambiguity in user rights; security; women & child safety; organised information wars, radicalisation and circulation of hate speech; misinformation and fake news; unfair trade practices”. The government has hosted two consultations on the Bill and they reveal the sheer scale of the Indian government’s vision, covering everything from online harms and content moderation to artificial intelligence and the digitalisation of the government.
Protections against liability for internet intermediaries hosting content on their platforms – often called Safe Harbour – has long defined the global discussions around online free expression and this is a live question hanging over the DIA. During an early consultation on the Bill held in the southern city of Bengaluru, Minister of State for Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar posed the question:
“If there is a need for safe harbour, who should be entitled to it? The whole logic of safe harbour is that platforms have absolutely no power or control over the content that some other consumer creates on the platform. But, in this day and age, is that really necessary? Is that safe harbour required?”
What would online speech policy look like without safe harbour provisions? It could herald in the near total privatisation of censorship, with platforms having to proactively and expansively police content to avoid liability. This is why the European safe harbour provisions included in the EU eCommerce Directive were left untouched during the negotiations around the DSA. With the Indian government highlighting the importance of the DIA in addressing the growing power of tech giants like Google and Meta, with Chandrasekhar stating in 2024 that “[t]he asymmetry needs to be legislated, or at the very least, regulated through rules of new legislation”, gifting tech companies power to decide what can and can’t be published online would surely represent an alarming recalibration that appears to run at odds with the Bill’s stated aims.
The changing approach to online expression is also evidenced in the slides used by the minister during the 2023 Bengaluru consultation. For instance, the internet of 2000 was defined as a “Space for good – allowing citizens to interact” and a “Source of Information and News”. But for MeitY, in 2023 it has curdled somewhat into a “Space for criminalities and illegalities” and a space defined by the “Proliferation of Hate Speech, Disinformation and Fake news.” This shift in perception also frames how the government identifies potential online harms. During the consultation, the minister stated that “[t]he idea of the Act is that what is currently legal but harmful is made illegal and harmful.” A number of harms were included in the minister’s presentation, highlighting everything from catfishing and doxxing, to the “weaponisation of disinformation in the name of free speech” and cyber-fraud tactics such as salami-slicing. This covers a universe of harms that each would require distinct and tailored responses and so questions remain as to how the DIA can adequately address all these factors, without adversely affecting internet users’ fundamental rights.
As a draft bill is yet to be published, there is no way of knowing what harms the DIA will contain. Without this, speculation has filled the vacuum. To illustrate this point, the Internet Freedom Foundation has compiled an expansive list of what the Bill could regulate collated solely from media coverage of the Bill from July 2022 until June 2023. This included everything from “apps that have addictive impact” and online gaming to deliberate misinformation and religious incitement material. What is also shrouded in darkness so far is how platforms or the state are expected to respond to these harms. As we have seen in the UK and across Europe, without clarity, full civil society engagement, and a robust rights framework, work to address online harms can significantly impact our right to free expression.
For now, the scope and scale of the government’s ambition can only be guessed at. For Index, the central question is, how can this be done while protecting the fundamental right of free expression, as outlined in Article 19 of the Indian Constitution and international human rights law? This is an issue of significant importance for everyone in India.
This is why Index on Censorship is kicking off a project to support Indian civil society engagement with the DIA to ensure it is informed by the experiences of internet users across the country, can respond to the learnings from other jurisdictions legislating on the same challenges and can adequately protect free expression. We will be engaging with key stakeholders prior to and during the consultation process to ensure that everyone’s right to speak out and speak up online, on whichever platform they choose, is protected.
If you are interested to learn more about this work please contact [email protected]
Last year, we published an issue of Index dedicated to issues related to free expression in India. Read it here.
13 May 24 | Asia and Pacific, India, News and features
It has less than six months since Divyendra Singh Jadoun, the 31-year-old founder of an artificial intelligence (AI) powered synthetic media company, started making content for political parties in India. Within this short time he has risen to be known as the “Indian Deepfaker” as several political parties across the ideological spectrum reach out to him for digital campaigning.
Jadoun’s meteoric rise has a lot to do with the fact that close to a billion people are voting in India’s elections, the longest and largest in the world, which started last month. He says he doesn’t know of a single political party that hasn’t sought him out to enhance their outreach. “They [political parties] don’t reach out to us directly, though. Their PR agencies and political consultants ask us to make content for them,” said Jadoun, who runs the AI firm Polymath, based in a small town known for its temples in the north Indian state of Rajasthan and which has nine employees.
In India’s fiercely divided election landscape, AI has emerged as a newfound fascination, particularly as the right-wing ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) vies for an unusual third consecutive term. The apprehension surrounding technology’s capabilities in a nation plagued by misinformation has raised concerns among experts.
Jadoun says his team has been asked many times to produce content which they find highly unethical. He has been asked to fabricate audio recordings that show rival candidates making embarrassing mistakes during their speeches or to overlay opponents’ faces onto explicit images.
“A lot of the content political parties or their agents ask us to make is on these lines, so we have to say no to a lot of work,” Jadoun told Index on Censorship.
Certain campaign teams have even sought subpar counterfeit videos from Jadoun, featuring their own candidate, which they intend to deploy to discredit any potentially damaging authentic footage that surfaces during the election period.
“We refuse all such requests. But I am not sure if every agency will have such filters, so we do see a lot of misuse of technology in these elections,” he says.
“What we offer is simply replacing the traditional methods of campaigning by using AI. For example, if a leader wants to shoot a video to reach out to each and every one of his party members, it will take a lot of time. So we use some parts of deep-fakes to create personalised messages for their party members or cadres,” Jadoun adds.
Pervasive use
India’s elections are deeply polarised and the ruling right-wing BJP has employed a vicious anti-minority campaign to win over the majority Hindu voters- who roughly form 80% of the electorate. The surge in use of AI reflects both its potential and the concerns, amidst widespread misinformation. A survey by cybersecurity firm McAfee, taken last year, found that over 75% of Indian internet users have encountered various types of deepfake content while online.
Some of the most disturbing content features various dead politicians have been resurrected through AI to sway voters. Earlier this year, regional All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Party’s (AIADMK) official account shared an audio clip featuring a virtual rendition of Jayalalithaa, a revered Tamil political figure who passed away in 2016. In the speech, her AI avatar aimed to inspire young party members, advocating for the party’s return to power and endorsing current candidates for the 2024 general elections.
Jayalalithaa’s AI resurrection is not an isolated case.
In another instance, just four days prior to the start of India’s general election, a doctored video appeared on Instagram featuring the late Indian politician H Vasanthakumar. In the video, Vasanthakumar voices support for his son Vijay Vasanth, a sitting Member of Parliament who is contesting the election in his father’s erstwhile constituency.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), known for its use of technology to polarise voters, has also shared a montage showcasing Prime Minister Modi’s accomplishments on its verified Instagram profile. The montage featured the synthesized voice of the late Indian singer Mahendra Kapoor, generated using AI.
Troll accounts subscribing to the ideology of different political parties are also employing AI and deepfakes to create narratives and counter-narratives. Bollywood star Ranveer Singh in a tweet last month cautioned his followers to be vigilant against deepfakes as a manipulated video circulated on social media platforms, where Singh appeared to criticise Modi. Using an AI-generated voice clone, the altered video falsely portrayed Singh lambasting Modi over issues of unemployment and inflation, and advocating for citizens to support the main opposition party, the Indian National Congress (INC). In reality, he had praised Modi in the original video.
“AI has permeated mainstream politics in India,” said Sanyukta Dharmadhikari – deputy editor of Logically Facts, who leads a team of seven members to fact-check misinformation in different vernacular languages.
Dharmadhikari says that countering disinformation or misinformation becomes extremely difficult in an election scenario as false information consistently spreads more rapidly than fact-checks, particularly when it aligns with a voter’s confirmation bias. “If you believe a certain politician is capable of a certain action, a deepfake portraying them in such a scenario can significantly hinder fact-checking efforts to dispel that misinformation,” she told Index on Censorship.
Selective curbs
Amidst growing concerns, the Indian government rushed to regulate AI by asking tech companies to obtain approval before releasing new tools, just a month before elections. This is a substantial shift from its earlier position when it informed Indian Parliament of not interfering in how AI is being used in the country. Critics argue that the move might be another attempt to selectively weigh down on opposition and limit freedom of expression. The Modi government has been widely accused of abusing central agencies to target the opposition while overlooking allegations involving its own leaders or that of its coalition partners.
“There needs to be a political will to effectively regulate AI, which seems amiss,” says Dharmadhikari. “Even though the Information Ministry at first seemed concerned at the misuse of deepfakes, but gradually we have seen they have expressed no concerns about their dissemination especially if something is helping [PM] Modi,” she added.
Chaitanya Rohilla, a lawyer based in Delhi, who initiated a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) at the Delhi High Court concerning the unregulated use of AI and deepfakes in the country believes that as technology unfolds at breakneck speed, the need for robust legal frameworks to safeguard against AI’s emerging threats is more pressing than ever.
“The government is saying that we are working on it…We are working on rules to bring about or to specifically target these deepfakes. But the problem is the pace at which the government is working, it is actually not in consonance with how the technology is changing,” Rohilla told Index on Censorship.
Rohilla’s PIL had requested the judiciary to restrict access to websites that produce deepfakes. The proposal suggested that such websites should be mandated to label AI-generated content and be prohibited from generating illicit material.
But Indian courts have refused to intervene.
“The information Technology Act that we have in our country is not suitable; it’s not competent to handle how dynamically the AI environment is changing. So as the system is unchecked and unregulated it (deepfake dissemination) would just keep on happening and happening.”
10 May 24 | Bahrain, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, China, Ecuador, Eritrea, Hong Kong, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Magazine Contents, Mexico, North Korea, Palestine, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Volume 53.01 Spring 2024
Contents
The Spring 2024 issue of Index looks at how authoritarian states are bypassing borders in order to clamp down on dissidents who have fled their home state. In this issue we investigate the forms that transnational repression can take, as well as highlighting examples of those who have been harassed, threatened or silenced by the long arm of the state.
The writers in this issue offer a range of perspectives from countries all over the world, with stories from Turkey to Eritrea to India providing a global view of how states operate when it comes to suppressing dissidents abroad. These experiences serve as a warning that borders no longer come with a guarantee of safety for those targeted by oppressive regimes.
Up Front
Border control, by Jemimah Steinfeld: There's no safe place for the world's dissidents. World leaders need to act.
The Index, by Mark Frary: A glimpse at the world of free expression, featuring Indian elections, Predator spyware and a Bahraini hunger strike.
Features
Just passing through, by Eduardo Halfon: A guided tour through Guatemala's crime traps.
Exporting the American playbook, by Amy Fallon: The culture wars are finding new ground in Canada, where the freedom to read is the latest battle.
The couple and the king, by Clemence Manyukwe: Tanele Maseko saw her activist husband killed in front of her eyes, but it has not stopped her fight for democracy.
Obrador's parting gift, by Chris Havler-Barrett: Journalists are free to report in Mexico, as long as it's what the president wants to hear.
Silencing the faithful, by Simone Dias Marques: Brazil's religious minorities are under attack.
The anti-abortion roadshow, by Rebecca L Root: The USA's most controversial new export could be a campaign against reproductive rights.
The woman taking on the trolls, by Daisy Ruddock: Tackling disinformation has left Marianna Spring a victim of trolling, even by Elon Musk.
Broken news, by Mehran Firdous: The founder of The Kashmir Walla reels from his time in prison and the banning of his news outlet.
Who can we trust?, by Kimberley Brown: Organised crime and corruption have turned once peaceful Ecuador into a reporter's nightmare.
The cost of being green, by Thien Viet: Vietnam's environmental activists are mysteriously all being locked up on tax charges.
Who is the real enemy?, by Raphael Rashid: Where North Korea is concerned, poetry can go too far - according to South Korea.
The law, when it suits him, by JP O'Malley: Donald Trump could be making prison cells great again.
Special Report: The long reach - how authoritarian countries are silencing critics abroad
Nowhere is safe, by Alexander Dukalskis: Introducing the new and improved ways that autocracies silence their overseas critics.
Welcome to the dictator's playground, by Kaya Genç: When it comes to safeguarding immigrant dissidents, Turkey has a bad reputation.
The overseas repressors who are evading the spotlight, by Emily Couch: It's not all Russia, China and Saudi Arabia. Central Asian governments are reaching across borders too.
Everything everywhere all at once, by Daisy Ruddock: It's both quantity and quality when it comes to how states attack dissent abroad.
A fatal game of international hide and seek, by Danson Kahyana: After leaving Eritrea, one writer lives in constants fear of being kidnapped or killed.
Our principles are not for sale, by Jirapreeya Saeboo: The Thai student publisher who told China to keep their cash bribe.
Refused a passport, by Sally Gimson: A lesson from Belarus in how to obstruct your critics.
Be nice, or you're not coming in, by Salil Tripathi: Is the murder of a Sikh activist in Canada the latest in India's cross-border control.
An agency for those denied agency, by Amy Fallon: The Sikh Press Association's members are no strangers to receiving death threats.
Always looking behind, by Zhou Fengsuo and Nathan Law: If you're a Tiananmen protest leader or the face of Hong Kong's democracy movement, China is always watching.
Putting Interpol on notice, by Tommy Greene: For dissidents who find themselves on Red Notice, it's all about location, location, location
Living in Russia's shadow, by Irina Babloyan, Andrei Soldatov and Kirill Martynov: Three Russian journalists in exile outline why paranoia around their safety is justified.
Comment
Solidarity, Assange-style, by Martin Bright: Our editor-at-large on his own experience working with Assange.
Challenging words, by Emma Briant: An academic on what to do around the weaponisation of words.
Good, bad and everything that's in between, by Ruth Anderson: New threats to free speech call for new approaches.
Culture
Ukraine's disappearing ink, by Victoria Amelina and Stephen Komarnyckyj: One of several Ukrainian writers killed in Russia's war, Amelina's words live on.
One-way ticket to freedom?, by Ghanem Al Masarir and Jemimah Steinfeld: A dissident has the last laugh on Saudi, when we publish his skit.
The show must go on, by Katie Dancey-Downs, Yahya Marei and Bahaa Eldin Ibdah: In the midst of war Palestine's Freedom Theatre still deliver cultural resistance, some of which is published here.
Fight for life - and language, by William Yang: Uyghur linguists are doing everything they can to keep their culture alive.
Freedom is very fragile, by Mark Frary and Oleksandra Matviichuk: The winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize on looking beyond the Nuremberg Trials lens.
