Twitter failed to comply with new IT rules, says Ravi Shankar Prasad

The Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad, said Wednesday that Twitter has “failed to comply” with the new IT Rules that came into effect from May 26.

Responding to reports about Twitter losing its safe harbour provision under its intermediary status in India, Prasad tweeted, “There are numerous queries arising as to whether Twitter is entitled to safe harbour provision. However, the simple fact of the matter is that Twitter has failed to comply with the intermediary guidelines that came into effect from May 26.”

He added that Twitter was given multiple opportunities to comply with the new rules, but it failed to do so.

MeitY had said on May 28 that major social media intermediaries have shared the details as required under the new IT Rules, 2021, except Twitter, which is yet to send in details about its chief compliance officer.

The Ministry had written to all social media firms on May 25, the deadline for compliance with the new Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

According to the rules, significant social media intermediaries, or those with more than 5 million users, have to notify the details of their Indian-based chief compliance officer, nodal contact person and grievance officer.

Twitter had, the ministry said earlier, shared details of a lawyer working in a law firm in India as their nodal contact person and grievance officer. The rules require that designated officers of large social media companies must be the employees of the company and resident in India.

However, digital rights firm Internet Freedom Foundation said the new IT rules do not hold the power to take away intermediary status of a social media intermediary platform such as Twitter, Facebook or Youtube. “The IT Act or IT Rules do not contain any power or process for grant or revocation of an intermediary status. There is no immediate penalty which flows from non-compliance beyond loss of immunity determined by Courts on evidence and legal submissions,” IFF said, explaining the issue in a series of tweets.

It further said that reports suggesting Twitter or any other intermediary will lose their safe harbour safeguards were rooted in an “incorrect reading of the law”.

On Tuesday, the Ghaziabad Police registered a first information report against Twitter for failing to take down a viral video that could incite communal hatred.

“What happened in UP was illustrative of Twitter’s arbitrariness in fighting fake news. While Twitter has been over enthusiastic about its fact checking mechanism, it’s failure to act in multiple cases like UP is perplexing & indicates its inconsistency in fighting misinformation,” said Prasad in his tweets. He further said that the company had failed to address the grievances of users by refusing to set up process as mandated by the law of the land.

IFF also addressed the FIR and said it was up to the courts, and not the government, to decide if companies like Twitter are intermediaries or not for failing to comply with the IT Rules.