At the heart of the standoff is a sweeping internet law that puts digital platforms like Twitter and Facebook under direct government oversight.
Tech companies are facing similar challenges in many countries. China has been aggressively tightening controls on access to its 1.4 billion-strong market, which is already largely sequestered by the Communist Party's Great Firewall and by US trade and technology sanctions.“Any internet company knows that India is probably the biggest market in terms of scale.
Twitter missed a three-month deadline in May, drawing a strong rebuke from the Delhi High Court. Last week, after months of haggling with the government, it appointed all three officers as required. “Social media users can criticise Narendra Modi, they can criticise government policy, and ask questions. I must put it on the record straight away ... But a private company sitting in America should refrain from lecturing us on democracy" when it denies its users the right to redress, the ex-IT minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, told the newspaper The Hindu last month.
Facebook’s WhatsApp, which has more than 500 million users in India, has sued the government, saying breaking encryption, which continues for now, would “severely undermine the privacy of billions of people who communicate digitally".
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