The animosity between Twitter and the Indian government in the last few months has not evaded anyone. The two entities have been fighting it out on several fronts, starting with the farmers’ protest, leading on to the Congress Toolkit fiasco and even extending to the new IT laws. If you, like me, have been worried that your favorite social media platform may be banned in the country, fret not, for we have some good news. The Indian government has told a court today that Twitter is finally in compliance with the new IT rules of the country, giving users hope that the acrimony between the two might finally be ending.
The new laws state that significant social media intermediaries, along with some other internet based platforms, will have to appoint different officers-chief compliance officer, nodal contact person and resident grievance officer, to address different complains and issues regarding their platforms.
While Google, Facebook and many others complied with this directive pretty close to the May deadline, Twitter had asked for an extra few months, adding that it is not in favor of these new laws. In the meantime, it appointed temporary staff for this position. However, the chief compliance officer resigned pretty soon, and this led to the company appointing a non Indian national to the position, something that was in defiance of the new laws.
This led to Twitter losing its title of significant social media intermediary, opening it up to lawsuits from different parties. Even though none of these lawsuits led to any major harm for the America based platform, it was still a nuisance. Thus, just a few days ago, it finally appointed permanent officers in the country, which has led to the Indian government announcing that it is “prima facie” compliant with the new law.
While it looks like the feud between Twitter and Indian government might finally be reaching its end, there is still a long chain of events that will need to be solved. The farmers protest, as part of which, Twitter declined to remove certain tweets that were deemed objectionable by the government, as well as the raid that took place at the company’s headquarters, are just a few examples of incidents that led to bad blood between the two parties. However, a new hope arises.
It must also be noted that not every platform has agreed to the new laws. WhatsApp, which has also been in a tussle with the government over the new privacy laws, is yet to comply with the new rules, and has sued the Indian government over this. Thus, it remains to be seen what the future of IT laws is in India.
