Twitter’s negligence to comply with the Indian government’s current Information Technology laws has increased interrogations about its intermediary situation in the nation. As a mediator, Twitter is just the intermediate — but if it dissipates that security, the social media platform could be taken promptly liable for all columns on its panel in India.
In reality, if the Indian administration determined tomorrow that a given tweet wasn’t complying with its rules, the social media platform would have interrogatories to acknowledge.
In addition to the user who posted the tweet, Twitter could be responsible for the content under the Information Technology Act, 2000, and the country’s penal codes.
According to the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), the intermediary state of social media programs is only “professional” eligibility.
According to Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, Twitter and other mediators would still be protected from accountability if they were to comply with statutory “takedown” demands from courts and government executives, eliminating user posts wherever required.
The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) questioned the latest Information Technology laws for being undemocratic, saying the current laws infringed the primary interests of Indian citizens like the freedom of speech, freedom to practice any business, the right to privacy, amongst others.
“The IT rules published by the administration are undemocratic. In the garb of addressing misinformation and regulating technology companies, GoI has been exceeding the powers granted through subordinate legislation and using it for political purposes as is evident from the recent Twitter fracas,” said Mishi Choudhary, founder of SFLC.
The underlying statement is that the current laws aren’t in line with the current act, the Information Technology Act, 2000.
Twitter — simultaneously with Facebook, Google, WhatsApp, and others — had until May 26 to satisfy the demands of being a “meaningful” social media mediator in the nation.
These “meaningful” platforms, categorized as those with more than five million users, are obligated to designate a grievance officer, a nodal officer, and a chief compliance officer (CCO) — and those employing all three posts must be Indian residents.
