The government on Friday said that Twitter is still not following the new IT Rules and that, unlike others, is yet to send the details of the Chief Compliance Officer to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).
“Most of the major social media intermediaries have shared the details of their Chief Compliance Officer, Nodal Contact Person and Grievance Officer with MeitY, as required by the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021,” a senior MeitY official told BusinessLine .
Significant social media intermediaries such as Koo, Sharechat, Telegram, LinkedIn, Google, Facebook and WhatsApp have shared details with the Ministry, he said. “However, after a firm response from the government yesterday, Twitter sent a communication late last night, sharing details of a lawyer working in a law firm in India as its Nodal Contact Person and Grievance Officer,” the person sighted above said.
“The Rules require that these designated officers of significant social media companies must be the employees and resident in India,” he added.
‘Freedom of expression’
“Right now, we are concerned by recent events regarding our employees in India and the potential threat to freedom of expression for the people we serve. We, alongside many in civil society in India and around the world, have concerns with regard to the use of intimidation tactics by the police in response to enforcement of our global Terms of Service, as well as with core elements of the new IT Rules. We plan to advocate for changes to elements of these regulations that inhibit free, open public conversation,” a spokesperson at Twitter had said on Thursday.
To this, MeitY had come down heavily and said that Twitter’s statement was an attempt to dictate its terms to the world’s largest democracy.