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Deepti Sri · · 1 min readReport: Twitter dispute with Indian gov’t escalates over new digital rules
“The Indian government accused Twitter of attempting to ‘dictate terms to the world’s largest democracy’ and ‘defame India to hide their own follies,’ escalating their dispute after the social network accused officials of intimidation,” Bloomberg reported.
Details:
- Twitter has raised concerns over the exploitation of Covid-19 for political gain in India. This comes after police officers visited the company’s local office to deliver a notice regarding some tweets by senior members of the ruling party, which were labeled as “synthetic and manipulated media.”
- In response to Twitter’s statement, which called the government’s action as an “intimidation tactic,” India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said the US-based company must “stop beating around the bush” and comply with the new IT rules.
Context:
- The move is the latest escalation in a series of takedown requests by the Indian government. A day ago, Twitter said that the new IT guidelines that make a compliance officer responsible for content on the platform comes across as a “dangerous overreach” that does not represent open and democratic principles.
- Recently, WhatsApp also filed a lawsuit against the Indian government’s new digital rules, citing how these would compel the company to break privacy protections for users.
Editing by Collin Furtado and Eileen C. Ang
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