What's in store for Twitter and its spats with Indian govt in the Musk era?

Business Standard does a recap of the face-off between the microblogging site on one side and the Centre and MeitY on the other

With Elon Musk taking over Twitter, many are wondering what the fate of the company in India will be. The social media platform has found itself in several face-offs with the government of India or the Ministry of electronics and information and technology (MeitY) in the past. However, there is only one substantial case that is being fought between Twitter and the Government of India, and all the earlier standoffs have either been some notice from the Meity on non-compliance or individuals filing cases against Twitter.

India has around 23.6 million users on the platform, as of January 2022, says Statista's data.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of states for electronics and IT on Musk taking over said: “Our rules and laws for intermediaries remain the same regardless of who owns the platforms. So, the expectation of compliance with Indian laws and rules remains.”

Twitter sues GoI

In July of 2022, Twitter filed a case with the Karnataka High Court against Meity’s content-blocking orders issued under section 69 (A) of IT Act, 2000.

This was in reply to June 27 notice of Meity to the microblogging platform and gave them ‘one last opportunity’ to act on the takedown notices by July 4.

In May the government had asked Twitter to take action on content on Khalistan and Kashmir. According to media reports, the government had asked Twitter to remove 60 accounts and tweets of journalists, politicians, and supporters of farmer protests.

Start of faceoffs

The first face-off between the government and Twitter took place in late January/early February 2021. The Indian government asked Twitter to take down several tweets related to the ongoing farmers’ agitation. While Twitter complied with some emergency orders, it restored some content later.

In 2021, Meity introduced the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules (or IT Rules) 2021. This requires significant social media intermediaries such as Twitter, who have more than 50 lakh users on their platforms, to appoint certain officials who can be held liable for content on the platform, and publish monthly compliance reports.

In July 2021, the IT ministry in its affidavit told Delhi HC that Twitter is set to have failed to comply with the IT Rules, 2021. The reason where:

• Chief compliance officer not appointed
• Position of resident grievance officer is vacant
• Position of nodal contact person (even on interim basis) is vacant
• Physical address shown on the website not available

In 2021, three FIRs were filed against then Twitter India head Manish Maheshwari. These cases ranged from showing an incorrect map of India to a video of alleged communal violence going viral, one of which even led to him filing a caveat in the Supreme Court.

Source: Media reports, BS