US-based non-profit rights group Stand With Kashmir (SWK) in its latest report has accused social media giants Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram of digitally censoring Kashmiris by frequently suspending their digital accounts.
The report, highlighting the connivance of social media platforms in silencing Kashmiri voices since 2017, said these platforms have been removing content and suspending the accounts of artists, academics, and journalists based in and outside the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) region. The experts have termed the move as “reprehensible”.
The 30-page report titled “How social media corporations enable silence on Kashmir,” claims that since 2017, tech companies like Facebook and Twitter have been continually silencing Kashmiris online by removing content and suspending accounts.
The report further claimed that these companies have engaged in “algorithmic manipulation of content critical of India’s military occupation and settler colonialism in the region”.
These digital platforms are involved in the “erasure of Kashmiri digital rights and the ongoing digital blackout of Kashmir,” the report added.
In August 2019, when the Indian government revoked Jammu and Kashmir’s autonomy and statehood, it snapped all communications and imposed a sweeping internet shutdown in the region.
Last year, Access Now, an international organization that tracks internet access around the world, revealed that India was at the top of the list of internet shutdowns across the globe as 109 out of 155 internet shutdowns took place in India.
SWK conducted an online poll involving its 32,000 followers on Twitter and Instagram, where users were asked which platforms they experienced censorship on.
Of the 311 responses, 62% said they experienced censorship of some kind on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. In another Instagram poll where 140 responses were logged, 19% said they experienced censorship on Twitter, 25% did on Facebook, and 44% on Instagram.
About its report, the SWK spokesperson told Al Jazeera that “since August 2019, the level of censorship of Kashmiri voices in person but also on social media has only increased”.
Digital rights activists have also expressed their concerns over the illogical removal of the online content of Kashmiris by the social media giants, saying that removing social media content speaks about general lack of transparency.