Twitter Notice To Remove Manipulated Media Not Under IT Act, Says MeitY

A few months ago, Twitter was subjected to a ton of backlash by MeitY after the post of one of its spokesperson was tagged as a ¡®Manipulated media¡¯ by the social media handle, asking the platform to stop conducting fact checks and act as an intermediary.

Free Press Journal

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However, an RTI filed by the Internet Freedom Foundation revealed that MeitY has now admitted that these letters weren¡¯t issued under any provision of the IT Act, 2000.

This is according to a Twitter thread by the Internet Freedom Foundation that spoke about the whole ordeal.

Remember the ¡°Manipulated Media¡± episode? When @GoI_MeitY sent letters to Twitter asking it to stop conducting fact checks?

Well, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has now admitted that the letters were not issued under any provision of the IT Act, 2000. 1/n pic.twitter.com/otzSJ6cUTC

¡ª Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) (@internetfreedom) August 4, 2021

The organisation had filed two RTIs withMeitY in June to understand that its direction to ask Twitter to remove the aforementioned tag was done under which provisions. At the time, MeitY didn¡¯t really refer to any legal provisions under the IT Act, although it did give the organisation copies of two letters that it had sent to Twitter.

The response that was made by Twitter wasn¡¯t shared with the Internet Freedom Foundation. For this, they filed the first appeal against this, along with MeitY¡¯s failure to show a legal basis for directing Twitter to do such tasks.

Also Read: Twitter Tags Sambit Patra¡¯s Tweet As Manipulated Media, MeitY Wants Tag Removed

Replying to the First Appeal by IFF, MeitY has admitted in its response that there was indeed no legal basis for the issuance of its letters. It however highlighted that responses received by Twitter are ¡°marked confidential under the fiduciary relationship condition and cannot be shared in the public domain,¡± while disposing of the appeal.

IFF highlights that this is more alarming since in its second letter it asked Twitter to stop tagging Tweets as ¡®Manipulated media¡¯.

IFF concluded stating, ¡°We call upon @GoI_MeitY to refrain from over-reaching its powers and acting beyond its legal ambit. We also call upon Twitter to advance transparency by making its correspondence with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology publicly available.¡±

Reuters

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The new minister of MeitY, Ashwini Vaishwaw, while responding to a question in the Parliament had also stated that it didn¡¯t come under the purview of the newer IT Rules, 2021, "On the issue of manipulated media, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has pointed out to Twitter that they are violating the principle of natural justice and urged Twitter to be transparent and equitable in applying the criteria,"

He added, ¡°As per Twitter, the labelling of certain messages as ¡®Manipulated Media¡¯ has been done as per their ¡®Synthetic and Manipulated Media Policy¡¯. However, no specific details of how this policy became applicable have been shared. The government has been engaged with Twitter on this issue."