{"id":25217,"date":"2021-07-11T06:42:50","date_gmt":"2021-07-11T06:42:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rbsitsoftwaresolution.com\/blog\/twitter-has-lost-liability-protection-in-india-government-says.html"},"modified":"2021-07-11T06:42:50","modified_gmt":"2021-07-11T06:42:50","slug":"twitter-has-lost-liability-protection-in-india-government-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/twitter-has-lost-liability-protection-in-india-government-says.html","title":{"rendered":"Twitter has lost liability protection in India, government says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twitter no longer enjoys the liability protection against user-generated content in India, the government said in a court filing this week as tension escalates between the two over the South Asian nation\u2019s new IT rules<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a court filing on Monday, New Delhi said Twitter has lost its immunity in India after the American social network failed to comply with the new local IT rules, which were unveiled in February and went into effect in late May.<\/p>\n

Experts have said in recent weeks that the Indian court \u2014 and not the Indian government \u2014 holds the power<\/a> to decide whether Twitter gets to keep its safe harbor protections in the world\u2019s second largest internet market.<\/p>\n

Internet services enjoy what is broadly referred to as \u201csafe harbor\u201d protection that say that tech platforms won\u2019t be held liable for the things their users post or share online. If you insult someone on Twitter, for example, the company may be asked to take down your post (if the person you have insulted has approached the court and a takedown order has been issued) but it likely won\u2019t be held legally responsible for what you said or did.<\/p>\n

Without the protection, Twitter \u2014 which according to mobile insight firm App Annie, has over 100 million users in India \u2014 is on paper responsible for everything those users say on its platform.<\/p>\n

\u201cI state the immunity conferred on intermediaries under section 79(1) is a conditional immunity subject to the intermediary satisfying the conditions under sections 79(2) and 79(3). As provided in Rule 7, failure to observe the IT Rules 2021 results in provisions of Section 79(1) of the IT Act, 2000 not being applicable to such an intermediary,\u201d N Samaya Balan of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology wrote in the filing.<\/p>\n

The move comes as tension escalates between the Indian government and Twitter. Google, Facebook and several other firms have partially or fully complied with the IT rules<\/a>, which among other things, requires any significant social media firm (any firm with over 5 million users in India) to appoint a chief compliant officer, a resident grievance officer, and a so-called nodal contact person to address on-ground concerns.<\/p>\n

Twitter has not complied with any of these requirements, the court filing said. Twitter had no comment on Monday\u2019s filing, but has said in the past that it intends to comply with the IT rules.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll social media platforms are welcome to do business in India. They can criticize Ravi Shankar Prasad, my Prime Minister or anyone. The issue is of misuse of social media. Some of them say we are bound by American laws. You operate in India, make good money, but you will take the position that you\u2019ll be governed by American laws. This is plainly not acceptable,\u201d India\u2019s IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said at a conference last week.<\/p>\n

With the liability protection stripped off, Twitter executives in India could face several criminal charges over content deemed objectionable on the platform. Indian police have already filed at least five cases against the company or its officials in the country over a range of issues.<\/p>\n

A special squad of Delhi police made a surprise visit to two of Twitter\u2019s offices in late May<\/a>\u00a0in what many perceived as an intimidation tactic. Twitter said at the time that it was \u201cconcerned by recent events<\/a> regarding our employees in India and the potential threat to freedom of expression for the people we serve\u201d and requested the Indian government to grant it three additional months to comply with the new IT rules.<\/p>\n

WhatsApp, too, hasn\u2019t fully complied with the new IT rules. The IT rules also mandate operators of encrypted messaging apps to introduce a way for the law enforcement to be able to \u201ctrace\u201d the originator of objectionable messages. WhatsApp, which has amassed over 530 million users in India,\u00a0sued the Indian government<\/a>\u00a0in May over this requirement, saying making \u201ctraceability\u201d possible would violate citizens\u2019 constitutional right to privacy.<\/p>\n

Signal has also reportedly not complied<\/a> with the traceability requirement. The messaging service didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment. It\u2019s unclear whether Apple, which has tens of millions of Messages \/ iMessage users in India, has complied with the traceability requirement. It declined to comment.<\/p>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/DAbVzSyCKAM\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twitter no longer enjoys the liability protection against user-generated content in India, the government said in a court filing this week as tension escalates between the two over the South <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-25217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t