PEN International welcomes the news that Salil Tripathi, journalist, writer, and Chair of PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee, has had his account reinstated on Twitter. However, the basis on which his account was suspended raises important questions concerning the efficacy of Twitter’s procedures for moderating content and the platform’s potential vulnerability to abuse by malicious actors who seek to silence critical voices.

Salil Tripathi’s account was suspended without any warning on 6 December 2020, just hours after Salil posted a recording of himself reading a poem that he wrote about his late mother on the eve of the anniversary of the controversial demolition of the Babri Masjid in North India.

... It remains unclear how any of these posts could have violated Twitter’s Terms of Service policy. Twitter told Tripathi that a list he maintains of twitter accounts violated its policy, without clarifying how or why such a list violated twitter’s policies.

... Shortly after Salil’s account was suspended, another twitter account named ‘DESHI_ARMY’ claimed responsibility. The account’s name refers to an online network of pro-government activists who actively seek to deplatform prominent critics of India’s ruling BJP government by conducting targeted mass reporting campaigns in an effort to suspend critics’ accounts.

In response to his suspension from Twitter, Salil Tripathi said: “No journalist or writer wants to become the story, nor should one become the story. Many more journalists and writers have endured far worse than what I am experiencing at the moment... That said, twitter's decision-making has been opaque and arbitrary. Twitter is a private space which creates the illusion of being a public space, which it clearly is not, and takes decisions on free speech and human rights that it does not have the mandate, expertise, or capacity for. It has the right to do what it wishes and to set its terms. It will be judged by whether it is capable of acting in a fair manner - in my case it hasn't, but I'm hardly alone to say this.”

PEN International calls on Twitter to have more transparent policies that respect freedom of expression and fairer arbitration procedures. Twitter should also conduct a thorough revaluation of its suspension procedures in light of the apparent misuse of its reporting feature by actors seeking to silence peaceful expression.