Two more complaints, call for legal action against Twitter India

Country Head Manish Maheshwari and news partnerships head Amrita Tripathi were booked under IPC and Information Technology (Amendment) Act 2008 for wrong map of India on its website

Twitter India's troubles continued on Tuesday after at least two more complaints being filed against the microblogging platform, and a political leader calling for legal action.

Twitter India Country Head Manish Maheshwari and news partnerships head Amrita Tripathi had been booked under Section 505 (2) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 74 of Information Technology (Amendment) Act 2008 for showing a wrong map of India on its website, on the complaint of a Bajrang Dal leader in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh. 

The issue revolves around a controversial map of India on the career section of Twitter, and showed Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh as a separate country. This led to angry reactions on Twitter, and the microblogging platform removed the map on Monday night.

Later in the day, on Tuesday, Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra said that he had asked the Director General of Police (DGP) to investigate the same issue and take legal action against Twitter for "distorting" India's map.

In a separate case, the Delhi Police registered an FIR against Twitter, based on a complaint filed by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR). The complaint alleges that Cchild pornographic videos and links were available on Twitter.

News reports said the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Cyber Cell had been summoned Tuesday by the NCPCR for not taking action against Twitter despite repeated letters.

"Twitter has a zero tolerance policy for child sexual exploitation (CSE) and we have a proactive approach to combating sexual exploitation of minors on our service. We have been at the forefront of responding to the evolving challenge of preventing the exploitation of children on the Internet and will continue to aggressively fight online child sexual abuse, as well as invest in the technology and tools that are essential to stay ahead of this issue. We will continue to invest in proactive detection and removal of content that violates the Twitter Rules and work with law enforcement and NGO partners in India to tackle the issue," said a spokesperson at the microblogging platform. 

According to Twitter, it uses PhotoDNA technology, its own proprietary tools, and other systems to detect behavioral signals and remove media. In many cases, it lets Twitter remove new accounts linked to this type of content before they have even sent their first tweet.

Twitter considers anyone under the age of 18 as a minor, and all viewing, sharing, or linking to child sexual exploitation (CSE) material, regardless of the intent, contributes to the re-victimization of the depicted children and is prohibited on our service, it says. 

This includes media, text, illustrations, or computer-generated images. This also applies to content that may further contribute to the victimization of children through the promotion or glorification of child sexual exploitation, according to the social media platform. 

Maheshwari has also been named in another FIR filed by UP Police in Ghaziabad. The Karnataka HC had on Thursday granted him interim relief in a case relating to an assault video that had gone viral on the microblogging platform. The HC had also directed that no coercive action be taken against him till Tuesday.

Karnataka HC said Tuesday it will hear the criminal case against Maheshwari on July 5.

The case relates to an ongoing complaint related to tweets on the assault of an elderly Muslim man in Ghaziabad.

Twitter on June 21 restricted tweets showing the video and images from it.

The government has been at loggerheads with Twitter ever since January, when the microblogging platform refused to take down some content related to the farmers' protests in India, saying it goes against their company policies. 

This further intensified after India enacted new rules for social media intermediaries. The government has said Twitter has not complied with the requirements, and may have lost its safe harbour protection under the IT Act.