Twitter has long claimed that it conforms to local speech laws — but Indian rules concerning obscenity and seditious speech are unusually harsh. Previously, the country employed speech prohibitions to suppress environmental concerns or broader discussion of internal political struggles. In a 2016 study on the topic, prominent author Arundhati Roy, who faced sedition charges for views regarding the Kashmir conflict, criticized the system as both chaotic and repressive. “The most terrifying thing is that any lunatic may go and file a complaint against you,” Roy stated at the time. “It’s a significant amount of harassment.”
