Musk says unaware why Twitter India pulled posts on BBC documentary critical of Modi

Elon Musk stated on Wednesday that he did not know “what exactly happened” when Twitter removed content related to a documentary that was critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this year. Musk also stated that some rules related to the content of social media platforms were “quite strict” in India.

India issued a directive in January ordering the censoring of a BBC documentary that questioned Modi’s leadership during the Gujarat riots of 2002. The directive stated that even the sharing of any snippets via social media was prohibited.

An adviser to the government named Kanchan Gupta had previously stated that the government had given orders to Twitter to prevent more than fifty tweets from linking to the video of the documentary.

Gupta had mentioned that the documentary was available to see on several Internet channels, despite the fact that the BBC had decided not to air it in India.

When asked if the website removed some content at the request of the Indian government, Musk responded, “I am not aware of this particular situation… don’t know what exactly happened with some content situation in India,” during an interview with the BBC that was broadcast live on Twitter Spaces. The interview was about whether or not the website removed some content.

According to him, “the restrictions in India for what can appear on social media are pretty severe, and we can’t go beyond the laws of the country.” He also added that “we can’t go beyond the laws of the country.”

The documentary centered on Modi’s tenure as chief minister of the western state of Gujarat during riots in 2002 that resulted in the deaths of at least one thousand persons, the most of whom were Muslims.

The number of casualties, according to activists, is more than twice as high.

Musk has been quoted as saying, “If we have a choice of between sending our staff to prison or complying with the laws, we will comply with the rules.”

According to a report by Reuters, India’s regulatory scrutiny of a variety of American technology companies such as Twitter, Facebook’s (META.O) WhatsApp, and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN.O) has hurt the business environment in a key growth market, prompting some companies to reconsider their expansion plans in the country.

Twitter has been asked by Indian authorities in the past to take action regarding content such as accounts that support an independent Sikh state, posts that are alleged to have spread misinformation about protests by farmers, and tweets that are critical of the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.