Twitter Loses Legal Protection In India: How It All Happened

Twitter has lost its intermediary immunity in India after it failed to appoint statutory officers on the company¡¯s role, in accordance with the new IT rules.

Reuters

This subjects the top executives, including the nation¡¯s managing director, to face police questioning and criminal liability under the Indian Penal Code over ¡®unlawful and inflammatory¡¯ content posted by Twitter users on its platform.

Twitter, today is the only American platform that has lost the protective layer that was granted under Section 79 of the IT Act.

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But why did this happen?

According to a government source in a conversation with TOI, ¡°The company had been given extra time to comply with the guidelines, but it has failed to fall in line with the new IT Rules despite our repeated indulgence, including an extension."

"With this, Twitter has lost its safe harbour protection, and now stands exposed to action under the IPC for any third-party unlawful content,¡± the official added.

The initial deadline for new IT rules

As per the new IT rules, each social media platform with an intermediary status had to appoint Intermediaries under the new IT rules before May 25. The rules were aimed at tracing the source of online content that caused harm to the people and establishing user identity and they were announced on February 25 with a three-month deadline.

Social media platforms with over 5 million registered users, including Twitter, were tasked to appoint compliance officers, a resident grievance officer, a chief compliance officer and a nodal contact person for monitoring and addressing harmful content. These rules also offered them an intermediary status and offering them immunity against a lawsuit for content posted on their platform.

Non-compliance with the initial deadline

On May 25, most of the intermediaries, including Twitter hadn't complied with the new guidelines, including a bunch of other platforms. However, while other platforms complied in a few days, Twitter delayed in appointing one, blaming the lockdown, along with technical issues. They did make some appointments later, but those were rejected as they were external legal consultants and not on Twitter¡¯s payroll.

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Twitter had appointed an interim chief compliance officer

When TOI contacted Twitter regarding this, Twitter revealed that they¡¯ve got an interim chief compliance officer in place. However, they haven¡¯t updated the IT ministry and were going to do that soon.

Reuters

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A Twitter spokesperson stated, ¡°We are keeping the IT Ministry apprised of the progress at every step of the process. An interim chief compliance officer has been retained and details will be shared with the Ministry directly soon. Twitter continues to make every effort to comply with the new Guidelines.¡±

The government official however has stated that he was yet to receive any of the aforementioned details. The ministry had issued a final notice to Twitter on June 5, asking it to comply with the new rules or lose the legal immunity that came with the IT rules which also has passed.

Someone has already sued Twitter for its content

with the safety net off, someone has already sued Twitter for third-party content that was in connection with an alleged assault on an elderly Muslim man on June 5. The plaintiff accuses Twitter, in an FIR filed in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, for not removing a misleading content linked to the incident,.

The video shows one Sufi Abdul Samad who alleged that his beard was cut and he was forced to chant 'Jai Shree Ram' and 'Vande Mataram' by a group of assailants. As per the police, Samad had lied and in fact the attack wasn't communal and was attacked by both Hindu and Muslim assailants who were disappointed over amulets he had sold to them. According to the attackers, Samad was selling fake talismans.

The FIR charges Twitter, several journalists, and Congress leaders for inciting 'communal sentiments'. Twitter was accused of sharing content with a motive to 'provoke communal sentiments' as the misleading post was retweeted by many.