The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology grilled two Twitter India representatives last week. The committee chaired by Congress party's Shashi Tharoor had summoned Twitter over concerns of safeguarding people's rights on the social media platform. The meeting was held at a time when Twitter and the Centre are at loggerheads over the new IT rules. While most social media platforms have complied with the rules, Twitter is yet to do so.
Sources privy to the meeting said the committee was unanimous in asking Twitter to comply with the new IT rules framed by the central government. MPs across party line told the social media giant that it must follow Indian laws. It is learnt that when committee members asked Twitter whether its company rules are more important than the laws framed by the government, Twitter representatives reportedly gave a "vague response" saying "Twitter rules are equally important for them".
Earlier this month, the Centre issued a notice to Twitter giving it one last chance to "immediately" comply with the new IT rules and warned that failure to adhere to the norms will lead to the platform losing exemption from liability under the IT Act.
Responding to the questions, the officials said Twitter would provide written response and that they aren't the competing authority. To this, they were asked who then was the competent authority to answer questions posed by the parliamentary panel. On non-compliance with the government's interim guidelines, Twitter said it is working on the issue. However, sources said, the two officials could not give a specific date by when the compliance will be ensured.
During the meeting, Twitter was also quizzed about the criteria based on which it tags tweets as "manipulated media". Answering this question, Twitter said it is an intermediary, and "whatever we think is not good for society, we tag them". "We have a policy. We have equal respect for the law of land." Recently, Twitter had tagged certain tweets by BJP leaders, including party spokesperson Sambit Patra, as "manipulated media" after the BJP alleged that the Congress was using a "toolkit" to defame India.
Following the meeting, Twitter issued a statement saying it is prepared to work with the parliamentary panel on the "important work" of safeguarding citizen's rights. Earlier this week, Twitter India Managing Director Manish Maheshwari was booked by the UP Police and asked to join a probe in connection with the case involving an assault on a Muslim man and posts about it on Twitter.
