Dimapur, July 8 (EMN): Microblogging platform Twitter Inc. has pledged to "fully comply" with India's new internet regulations after the Indian government said that the company would be legally liable for content posted by its users in India, Bloomberg reports.
As you may recall, Twitter was locked in a legal tussle with the Indian government for several months over its content moderation policies. The Indian government had issued a notice to Twitter after the company restored more than 250 accounts despite the Indian government's request to keep the accounts blocked under Sec 69A of the IT Act, 2000. In May, Indian police raided Twitter's Delhi office after the social media platform labelled a government official’s tweets as “manipulated media." Last month, the country’s technology minister warned the micro-blogging platform of "unintended consequences" and gave the platform one last notice to comply with its IT regulations. The saga culminated with India's IT ministry claiming in a court filing this week that the company no longer enjoys the liability protection against user-generated content in India after failing to comply with the country's new IT regulations.
In response to the Indian government's filing, a lawyer for the company has told the Delhi High Court on Thursday that the company has already appointed an interim chief compliance officer. The company has also assured the Indian government that it will assign a grievance officer by July 11 and appoint an interim nodal contact officer to respond to law enforcement requests within two weeks as per the requirements of India's new , which came into force in May.
Twitter's pledge to comply with India's new internet rules comes after it was given a deadline of two weeks to make the appointments. Had Twitter not pledged to comply with India's new IT rules, the social media firm would lose its legal immunity and thus open the gates to criminal charges against its executives over user-generated content.
Not to mention that Twitter cannot afford to lose the Indian market as it is the world’s largest market outside of China, Bloomberg reports.