Twitter is the first American so9cial media company to lose the special protections they were given when they did not hire anyone to monitor third-party content like they were obligated to. Twitter did not hire the statutory officers under the new IT rules by May 25 and ignored the “one last notice” issued on June 5. They must have thought India has a Democratic Party to protect them. I’ll bet that was a shocker.
The Times of India reported:
NEW DELHI: Twitter has lost the coveted “safe harbor” immunity in India over its failure to appoint statutory officers on the company’s role in line with the new IT rules, and its top executives, including the country managing director, could now face police questioning and criminal liability under IPC over ‘unlawful’ and ‘inflammatory’ content posted on the platform by any user.
With this, Twitter becomes the only American platform to have the protective shield [revoked]– granted under Section 79 of the IT Act, even though others such as Google, YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram remain protected, official sources said.
Police sent a letter to Twitter India after the social media giant labeled BJP labeled a tweet from spokesperson Sambit Patra’s tweet as “manipulated media.” The BJP is India’s conservative party. What a shocker. You could have knocked me over with a Sherman tank. I guess they don’t go for censorship over there. Twitter will not leave the country because quite frankly, they have a huge population and they cannot afford to lose the revenue.
Times of India here
“The company had been given extra time to comply with the guidelines, but it has failed to fall in line with the new IT Rules despite our repeated indulgence, including an extension. With this, Twitter has lost its safe harbor protection, and now stands exposed to action under the IPC for any third-party unlawful content,” a government source told TOI.
