Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar took to Twitter to slam the former CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey for his tirade against India where he claimed that the Indian govt pressurised him to withhold several accounts of journalists “critical of the govt” during the farmers’ protest.
This is an outright lie by @jack – perhaps an attempt to brush out that very dubious period of twitters history
— Rajeev Chandrasekhar 🇮🇳 (@Rajeev_GoI) June 13, 2023
Facts and truth@twitter undr Dorsey n his team were in repeated n continuous violations of India law. As a matter of fact they were in non-compliance with law… https://t.co/SlzmTcS3Fa
Taking to Twitter, Chandrasekhar said:
“This is an outright lie by @jack – perhaps an attempt to brush out that very dubious period of twitters history Facts and truth. @twitter undr Dorsey n his team were in repeated n continuous violations of India law. As a matter of fact they were in non-compliance with law repeatedly from 2020 to 2022 and it was only June 2022 when they finally complied. No one went to jail nor was twitter “shutdown”. Dorseys Twitter regime had a problem accepting the sovereignty of Indian law. It behaved as if the laws of India did not apply to it. India as a sovereign nation has the right to ensure that its laws are followed by all companies operating in India.
During the protests in January 2021, there was a lot of misinformation and even reports of genocide which were definitely fake. GoI was obligated to remove misinformation from the platform because it had the potential to further inflame the situation based on fake news. Such was the level of partisan behaviour on Twitter under Jack regime, that they had a problem removing misinformation from the platform in India, when they did it themselves when similar events took place in the USA.
To set the record straight, no one was raided or sent to jail. Our focus was only on ensuring the compliance of Indian laws. There is ample evidence now in public domain abt Jacks twitter’s arbitrary, blatantly partisan n discriminatory conduct and misuse of its power on its platform during that period. Twitter under Dorsey was not just violating Indian law, but was partisan in how it was using “deamplify” n deplatforming of some arbitrarily in violation of Art 14,19 of our constitution and also assisting in weaponising of misinformation. Our govts policies remain clear for all Intermediaries operating in India – compliance with laws to ensure Internet is Safe&Trusted, Accountable”.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who is a union minister and Member of the Consultative Committee on MoE & IT, Ministry of Communications, essentially said that Twitter under Jack Dorsey was partisan, de-platformed those from India who they thought did not conform to their partisan and ideological view and refused to accept the sovereignty of Indian laws.
What Jack Dorsey said about India
A video went viral on social media on Tuesday, 13th June, where in an interview, former CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey went on a tirade against India, claiming that the Indian govt had threatened Twitter with a shut down if they did not withhold accounts that were critical of the government of India during the extremely violent farmers protest.
Jack Dorsey, former Twitter CEO alleges that during the farmer protest Indian govt pressurized us(Twitter) and said we will shut down Twitter in India, raid the homes of your employees if you don’t listen to us. pic.twitter.com/tnNYta5G20
— Megh Updates 🚨™ (@MeghUpdates) June 12, 2023
Indian government and the new IT guidelines
In February 2020, The central government issued fresh guidelines for social media and OTT platforms. The government said that these guidelines were being introduced to “establish a soft touch progressive institutional mechanism with a level playing field featuring a Code of Ethics and a three-tier grievance redressal framework for news publishers and OTT platforms on the digital media”.
The guidelines that were issued by the central government had several provisions and a code of ethics for the functioning of OTT platforms, Digital News websites and Social Media behemoths like Twitter, Facebook etc.
One of the most significant provisions of these guidelines is that if the social media platforms don’t comply with the provisions prescribed in the guidelines, this will attract penal provisions as per the Information Technology Act. The new guidelines say that the social media intermediaries must follow the due diligence mentioned in it, and if any intermediary does not follow the due diligence, the safe harbour provisions will not apply to them.
The section 79 of the Information Technology Act defines this safe harbour, which basically makes them not liable for any content posted by users on their platforms. It says that an intermediary shall not be liable for any third-party information, data, or communication link made available or hosted by them, provided they themselves didn’t initiate such communication, and observes due diligence under the IT act.
Now, this due diligence to be observed by the social media companies have been defined in the new guidelines. It includes various measures they have to perform, like identifying the first originator of any information that appears on social media, not allowing content that is defamatory, obscene, pornographic, paedophilic, inciting violence, against national integrity, misleading, false etc. The platforms also have to remove any such content within 36 hours of receiving a court order or a government direction to remove such content.
According to the guidelines, if the social media sites allow such objectionable content to be hosted on their platforms, and don’t remove them even after receiving such orders from courts or the government, it will mean that they are not observing due diligence. As a consequence, they will lose the safe harbour in the IT Act that isolates them from content posted on their platforms.
This means, if the social media companies do not comply with the guidelines, they will be held responsible for any content which is not allowed as per the guidelines. And, the officials of the social media companies will be liable to be prosecuted for such content. This implies that the social media officials will also be punished according to the nature of the offence, which is defined in the IT Act for various kinds of offences. The punishment defined in the act includes imprisonment for three years for most offences, but life imprisonment for some like cyber terrorism, and also includes fines of various amounts.
When the IT guidelines were issued, one of the most important compliance requirements imposed on social media companies was the grievance redressal mechanism that they had to put in place.
Following are the guidelines related to the appointment of grievance officer and the redressal mechanism they were required to put in place:
- Social media intermediaries shall register the grievance within 24 hours and dispose of the complaint within 15 days.
- The Intermediaries will have to publish a compliance report once a month where they detail the complaints they received and how they redressed the complaint.
- The resident grievance officer shall perform all functions under the grievance redressal mechanism.
- All grievance officers should have a physical address and that address should be published on the website and the mobile app.
- The person appointed as the chief compliance officer shall be a resident of India.
- The nodal contact person will be responsible for 24×7 coordination with Indian law enforcement agencies.
It is pertinent to note that Twitter under Jack Dorsey had breached almost all of the provisions in the IT guidelines that were enforced by the Indian government. One can read a primer on how social media behemoths were rampantly breaching the law to institute a grievance redressal system here.
In 2022, Elon Musk had in his court submission spoken extensively about how Twitter was flouting the law in India and was picking a battle where they did not need to. A full report on what Elon Musk had said about Jack Dorsey’s Twitter breaking laws in India can be read here.
