Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Wednesday that Twitter had failed to comply with the moderator rules and “deliberately” chose not to follow them despite being given several opportunities. Pointing at social media platform Twitter, for non-compliance with the rules, Prasad said it is “astonishing” that Twitter, which has been projecting itself as the flag bearer of free expression, is turning around when it comes to guidelines and choosing the path of disobedience.
Prasad said in a series of posts on Swadeshi social media platform ‘Ku’,
“Many questions are being raised about whether Twitter is entitled to a protection provision. The simple fact of the matter is that Twitter has failed to comply with the arbitrator guidelines that came into force on May 26.”
Prasad said,
“It is shocking that Twitter has failed to address the grievances of its users by refusing to establish a system mandated by the law of the nation. Furthermore, tweets are referred to as ‘manipulated media’ on the basis of their likes and dislikes.“
The minister said what happened in Uttar Pradesh was an example of Twitter’s mishandling of fake news.
They said,
“While Twitter has been bossy about its fact-checking mechanism, its failure to act in many cases like Uttar Pradesh’s and inconsistency in handling misinformation is shocking.”
The minister asked,
“Why are platforms like Twitter showing hesitation to comply with Indian laws designed to help victims of abuse and cyber crime?”
He said that the size of India is huge and the culture is very diverse. In some scenarios, even a small spark through the spread of social media can cause a fire, especially due to fake news.
Twitter has lost its ‘protected provision’ concession in India due to non-compliance of IT rules and has now taken action under the Indian Penal Code.