Update: As reported by Bloomberg, Twitter has appointed two new executives in India to comply with the country’s new information technology (IT) laws.
Original Article: Today, Twitter has lost the liability protection (immunity) against user-generated content in India, as the US social media giants have failed to comply with the country’s new local IT rules, the Indian government said in a court filing. Meaning that from now on Twitter is responsible for everything its users say on the platform and its executives in India “could face several criminal charges over content deemed objectionable on the platform,” according to TechCrunch.
And on a related note, Indian police have already filed at least five cases against the company and its officials (especially its India head, Manish Maheswari), for a controversial map of India showing Kashmir as a separate country and some cases related to child pornography.
Twitter has been in a deadlock over the new internet regulations, called Information Technology (IT) Rules, released in February by the government of India and went into effect in late May. According to IT rules social media giants must remove or delete content within 36 hours of a legal notice, and were asked to use automated processes to remove offensive content.
The company not only refused to comply with any of these requirements but also turn down the demands of the government to remove accounts that link with farmers’ protests. It has also taken down the officials’ anger by labeling tweets of BJP party members as “manipulated media”.
And as a result, the Indian government has now announced that Twitter has lost its liability protection against user-generated content. IT Ministry in a filing dated July 5th told the High Court in New Delhi that this decision is a result of social media giants’ breach of the new IT act.