00:03Satire and mocking authority are at the heart of India's now famous Cockroach movement.
00:08So Do is sharing content online.
00:11Sakhi is a student and a proud Cockroach protester who used Instagram to amplify the youth party's message.
00:21In this reel she pokes fun at police officers during their protests.
00:26It reached 40 million views.
00:29Soon after, Sakhi says her videos started disappearing.
00:33It is a systematic move by the government because it does not like, like the government does not like criticisms
00:39that we do on them.
00:41They do not like that we make, we can laugh at them.
00:44They do not like that we can question them.
00:49They do not like when we expose their things, expose their policies or talk about the failures of the policies.
00:57Sakhi sees five of her Instagram reels were taken down, others were restricted.
01:04Mehta pointed to a provision of India's information technology law that requires social media platforms to restrict flagged content or
01:12risk losing their legal protection in the country.
01:14All my Instagram reels have been removed under the local law, under the IT Act of India.
01:22And that directly shows that there was a policy bought by the government which is now getting used to remove
01:30content on Instagram.
01:31We cannot even appeal to it.
01:34We need to go to court.
01:35Mehta can also not do anything when local law is involved.
01:39Sakhi isn't the only one who is reporting content takedowns.
01:42Fellow caucus party members, opposition politicians, journalists and activists have detailed similar experiences.
01:49The Indian Express claims to have seen data that shows the federal government sent one takedown request, a minute, to
01:57social media firms like Meta.
01:58The founder of a digital rights group called Internet Freedom Foundation is concerned about what direction this is taking.
02:06The role the government is playing is that it wants all Meta platforms which is Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook to
02:13become the political pulpit and the broadcast channel for the official state propaganda which is for BJP's own political interest.
02:22And it does so, he says, by putting pressure on Meta, which needs the Indian market.
02:27Meta needs to exist in India because India is quite arguably its largest market in terms of users.
02:34DW reached out to the responsible government ministry for an interview regarding allegations of censorship and suppression of content related
02:42to the cockroach protests.
02:43A spokesperson declined an interview but sent us a written statement saying the government does not censor online content but
02:51ensures that, quote, only objectionable content as clearly defined in Article 19, Section 2 is restricted.
03:00DW also contacted Meta for comment but got no response.
03:05Meanwhile, for Sakhi there is no backing down.
03:08She says she and her fellow student protesters will continue posting and protesting.
03:13.
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