On Monday, the US-based social media giant Twitter faced tough questions—including why it had not appointed a Chief Compliance Officer in India—as it faced the Shashi Tharoor-led parliamentary committee on IT. According to sources, Twitter was told in no uncertain terms that “Indian laws are supreme and the company has to abide by them”.
Twitter India›s public policy manager Shagufta Kamran and legal counsel Ayushi Kapoor deposed before the panel on Friday.
Sources say that when the committee asked Twitter representatives whether their company rules are important or the laws of India are important, their reply was vague as they said that Twitter rules are equally important for them. This was not viewed positively by the committee, which then firmly told Twitter to follow the Indian laws.
Sources told that some members of the committee asked Twitter why it should not be fined as it has been found “violating” rules of the country. The committee also asked Twitter representatives present before it to submit in writing how they are placed within the social media platform and how much executive authority they have over policy decisions it makes.
The Twitter representatives, according to sources, told the panel that they will respond in writing and that they need to consult before answering because they are not the competent authority.
During a nearly 95-minute meeting, Twitter representatives were also asked about the company’s policy of acting on controversial content, as on what basis they take tag tweets as ‘manipulated media’. “Officials admitted that they promote what they think are healthy tweets and demote those which were not healthy tweets,” sources said.
A BJP MP reportedly called out Twitter saying its approach violated the IT Act.
After this meeting, as per an ANI report, Twitter said: “We appreciate the opportunity to share our views before the Standing Committee on IT. Twitter stands prepared to work with the Committee on the important work of safeguarding citizens’ rights online in line with our principles of transparency, freedom of expression, and privacy.”
Meanwhile, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has taken a dig at the Opposition parties who have slammed the new intermediary guidelines concerning social media platforms and said some people were “doing politics of Twitter”.
In an interview with ANI, Prasad, who is Communications, Electronics and IT Minster, said the issue concerning the new intermediary rules was between Twitter and its users. The government has said that the microblogging platform had “deliberately chosen” not to comply with new intermediary guidelines despite being given opportunities.
“Some people do their politics through Twitter. I have no problem. Now they are doing politics of Twitter. Today PM is on Twitter, I am on Twitter. It is not an issue between Twitter and Government of India or BJP. It is an issue of Twitter and its users and forum to complain in case of abuse and misuse. That is the basic distinction,” Prasad said.