Yes, Meta is Censoring Protest Posts on Insta, What Can Users Do?

Today is August 8th and CJP protest leaders including Ashutosh Ranka, Indian opposition politicians and pages including Indian Youth Congress and political creators such as Srishti Khanna are reporting that Meta is implementing a wave of censorship across Instagram. Why is this happening? How is this happening? And what can you do? This is happening because the government has placed pressure on Meta platforms and its global team has been in India, given that there was an inadvertent removal of a Narendra Modi video for 5 hours on July 28. Acting under this pretext, as per reporting of the Indian Express, there has been pressure applied by the government on Meta to suppress posts and explain its algorithm. Which is why we have been seeing that Meta, rather than responding to legal notices, has been stating that it is implementing an automated system for takedowns to comply with the IT rules 2021. What is this automated system? How does it work? Why is it flagging protest-related material as well as reels and videos being placed by young protesters? Some accounts are getting notices that this account has been restricted, blocking their posts from being viewed in India. This is the notice being given to Mr. Arvind K. Seewal. Why is this being done? All of this is being done also because this protest was as much as a content movement, as much as it was a cause movement. Young people took to social media to ask accountability from the government to organize in digital assembly and to question it and show the power of citizens to ask and demand for change Today this is being threatened because the government is not being able to engage with young people effectively because it lacks authenticity in listening to these demands and acting in a democratic manner. The resignation of the education minister was only a forced concession. Finally, what can you do about it? The pressure on Meta will not ease. It needs to continue its presence in India. An old expose by the Wall Street Journal had shown Meta will do whatever it takes to maintain its market presence in India. That includes not removing hate speech when it's made by BJP politicians. So given that we need to use Instagram, what can you do? Please do not keep content only on Instagram. Please keep a backup and try to post it on multiple platforms rather than just on Instagram or at least keep a copy for yourself. And these may be protest related materials, archival footage, which we have shot yourself. Second is if you're not seeing your favorite creator online, search for them on other platforms. Usually people who post on one platform will also post on other platforms. This can be X, this can be YouTube, so follow them there. And the third is follow smaller creators and try to boost content again and again. I know certain platform features like share to story may not be working on Instagram, but try your way around it and try sharing it also in WhatsApp groups every now and then. We have to keep this momentum going. Remember the hope which all of us felt when Mr. Dharmendra Pradhan resigned, the sense of relief which we felt and try to maintain that same semblance of democratic accountability from a government.