Shashi Tharoor-Led Panel Meets Twitter India Over New IT Rules, BJP Leaders Also Present

The meeting comes at a time when there has been continuous growing tension between the Centre and Twitter about the compliance of the new IT rules along with the alleged Congress toolkit case.

New Delhi: Congress leader Shashi Tharoor is heading the Standing Committee on Information and Technology to question Twitter India representatives and officials of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

As per reports, the parliamentary panel will focus on measures the Twitter officials are taking to prevent the misuse of online media platforms. 

The meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information and Technology began around 4:30 PM with the representatives of Twitter present.

Along with examining the issue of safeguarding citizens’ rights, the panel will also hear the views officials have on the subject of misuse of online media platforms. Special emphasis will also be paid to the security of women in the digital space.  

The meeting comes at a time when there has been continuous growing tension between the Centre and Twitter about the compliance of the new IT rules along with the alleged Congress toolkit case.

Adding to this is an FIR included by the Uttar Pradesh Police against Twitter for not taking any actions to remove “false tweets” of actor Swara Bhasker and others. Earlier a complaint was lodged about the matter with the Ghaziabad Police by advocate Amit Acharya who said that the posts “spread hate against the citizens” by trying to give the incident a “communal colour”. As a follow up, the police had sent a legal notice to Twitter India Managing Director Manish Maheshwari in the case. 

Announced in the month of May, the new Information Technology rules aim at regulating social media companies, streaming and digital news content under the canopy of government supervision.  

At the start of June, the Centre had sent a final notice to Twitter as the last reminder to comply with the IT rules, failing which might lead to “unintended consequences”. 

To this notice, Twitter, which had earlier criticised the regulations, said it was “making every effort” to comply with the new rules. On Tuesday, Twitter said that it had appointed an interim chief compliance officer in compliance with the new rules, adding that the details will be shared with the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology soon.