Since, February 2021 micro blogging giant, Twitter and the government of India are in a tussle over the new IT rules laid down by the Indian government. On Saturday, the government sent “one last notice” to twitter asking them to respect and follow, the statutory provisions under the new IT rules. The government also warned the micro blogging giant to face “consequences” under IPC. Through the notice, it stated that if the new rules are not obeyed yet, it might risk loosing legal immunity from any third party content posted on the platform.
Annoyed by the company’s denial to follow the provision of IT rules for intermediaries that were announced on February 25,2021 and were to be accepted within 26th May, the government wrote to twitter, “…in view of Twitter Inc’s non-compliance with the Rules….consequences follow. However, as a gesture of goodwill, Twitter is hereby given one last notice to immediately comply with the rules, failing which the exemption from liability available under section 79 of IT Act, 2000, shall stand withdrawn and Twitter shall be liable for consequences as per the IT Act and other penal laws of India.”
Earlier this week, IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad informed that Section 79 is an important provision of IT intermediaries/platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube as they are granted immunity from third party content and presence of any illegal or inflammatory matter therein. The government says that the Twitter’s decision to not comply with the new rules, that specify appointment of Key officers (compliance, grievance, and nodal), takes away the safe harbor protection granted to them for any content posted on their network. “Non compliance will not go “indefinitely unpunished”, the minister added.
On the day when the ministry gave a fresh ultimatum, the twitter acted against some of the twitter handles by removing the blue tick while the government had been working on acting against platforms that did not accept the new It rules.
On Saturday, the IT ministry expressed that it felt “dismayed” at Twitter response to its previous two notice sent on this issue. “It is clear from your responses that till date, Twitter has not informed about the details of the chief compliance officer as required under the rules. Further, the resident grievance officer and the nodal contact person nominated by you is not an employee of Twitter Inc. in India as prescribed in the rules. The officer address of Twitter Inc. as mentioned by you is that of law firm in India, which is not as per the rules.” the government replied rejecting the appointment of an outside consultant by the company.
