Govt-Twitter faceoff escalates over India IT rules

New Delhi: Twitter Inc. on Thursday said it was concerned by recent events regarding its employees in India and the potential threat to freedom of expression.

While it will strive to comply with India's new social media intermediary guidelines, the microblogging platform said it will not compromise on its principles of transparency and the protection for freedom of expression and privacy of its users under the rule of law.

Twitter’s seemingly defiant statement evoked a sharp response from the government, which accused the company of seeking to undermine India's legal system and refusing to comply with the very regulations in the intermediary guidelines that allow it to claim safe harbour protection from any criminal liability in India.


The Delhi Police, which earlier this week went to the company’s offices to serve a notice regarding the ‘toolkit’ investigation, too weighed in with its own statement, describing Twitter’s account as mendacious. The police said the company's statement was designed to impede a lawful enquiry and that it is purporting to be both an investigating authority as well as an adjudicating judicial authority.

The microblogging platform will urge the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) to publish standard operating protocols on procedural aspects of compliance with the new rules for public consultation and may also seek a minimum extension of three months to implement the rules, people aware of developments in the company said.

The comments came a day after the much-contested new guidelines for ‘significant’ social media platforms—with five million or more registered users—under the Information Technology Act came into effect on Wednesday, escalating an ongoing face-off between the San Francisco-based microblogging platform and the Indian government.

Relations between Twitter and the government have been frayed over the ‘toolkit’ controversy and over the US company's tagging of certain tweets as ‘manipulated media’.

Two teams from the special cell of Delhi Police had visited Twitter’s Gurgaon and Delhi offices on Monday to serve a notice to the company's managing director Manish Maheshwari over the platform tagging a post by BJP spokesman Sambit Patra as ‘manipulated media’ .

“Twitter is deeply committed to the people of India… To keep our service available, we will strive to comply with applicable law in India,” a company spokesperson said on Thursday. “But, just as we do around the world, we will continue to be strictly guided by principles of transparency, a commitment to empowering every voice on the service, and protecting freedom of expression and privacy under the rule of law.”

Meity in a late evening statement hit back at the US company. “Protecting free speech in India is not the prerogative of only a private, for-profit, foreign entity like Twitter but it is the commitment of the world’s largest democracy and its robust institutions,” Meity said in a strong rebuttal to Twitter’s statement.

Twitter’s response to the government’s demand for compliance with the new rules follows in the wake of those by other global social media platforms. WhatsApp on Tuesday filed a case in the Delhi High Court against the new guidelines that mandate traceability of the originator of specific messages.

The Facebook-owned messaging app has argued that the new rules violate the fundamental right of privacy of users. The government has shot back saying WhatsApp’s attempt to portray the intermediary guidelines of India as contrary to the right to privacy is misguided.