All big social media firms except Twitter have shared details required under India’s new information technology rules, government sources have said. Some of these are Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Koo, ShareChat, and Telegram, they said.
The report incorporates names of their self compliance official, nodal contact people, and grievance officials.
“Twitter is not following the rules,” said a source at the condition of anonymity. “Twitter has not yet sent the details of the chief compliance officer to the ministry.”
The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) enforced the new guidelines on Wednesday, making it compulsory for social media platforms to appoint compliance officials in India, set up a complaint redressal systems, and bring down content within 36 hours of a legal notice.
Facebook-owned WhatsApp has sued the central government, saying the guidelines are unconstitutional and violates user privacy.
The government yesterday solidly told Twitter to “stop beating around the bush and comply with the laws of the land” rather than “dictating terms” to the world’s largest democracy.
Following a solid government reaction, Twitter sent a response last night, sharing sharing details of a legal counselor working in a law firm in India as their nodal contact person and complaint official, sources said.
Although, the guidelines require that such officials are workers of the firm and residents of India.
The microblogging site owned by Jack Dorsey is buried in a row in India over the new IT guidelines as well as content filtering. Recently, it labeled a “Congress toolkit” tweet by BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra as “manipulated media”, welcoming the anger of the government, which sought clarification for such flagging. The Congress moved toward Twitter saying the claimed “toolkit” intended to defame Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the centre’s handling of the pandemic was fake.
A couple of days letter, the Delhi police arrived at the workplaces of Twitter in Delhi and Gurgaon. The police told the reason it was exploring the matter is to check how Twitter reached the conclusion that the tweet by Mr Patra was “manipulated media”, as without proof in hand Twitter wouldn’t have settled on that decision.
