Twitter is now complying\u00a0with India\u2019s new IT rules, New Delhi told a court Tuesday, in a move that is expected to ease months-long tension between the American social media network and the government of the key overseas market.<\/p>\n
A lawyer representing the Indian government told the Delhi High Court that Twitter\u2019s recent steps \u2014 appointment of chief compliance officer, nodal contact person and resident grievance officer in the country \u2014 have made the social network \u201cprima facie\u201d compliant with the new law.<\/p>\n
A Twitter spokesperson in India didn\u2019t immediately return a text.<\/p>\n
India\u2019s new IT rules, which were unveiled in February this year<\/a>, mandates significant social media firms, among other things, to appoint officials to address on-ground concerns in the country.<\/p>\n Facebook and Google complied with this requirement in May<\/a>, when the proposed rules went into effect in the South Asian market.<\/p>\n Twitter, which was facing heat from the Indian government for not blocking some tweets<\/a> that the Indian government had deemed objectionable, had requested additional few months to comply with the new rules and in the meantime filled the required roles with temporary staff.<\/p>\n Tension has been brewing between the two for several months. Twitter labeled a tweet from Sambit Patra<\/a>, the spokesperson of India\u2019s ruling party BJP, in May as \u201cmanipulated media.\u201d Days later,\u00a0a special squad of Delhi police that investigates terrorism and other crimes\u00a0made a surprise visit to two of Twitter\u2019s offices<\/a>\u00a0in the country to seek information about Twitter\u2019s rationale to term Patra\u2019s tweets as manipulated.<\/p>\n Twitter at the time said it was \u201cconcerned by recent events regarding our employees in India and the potential threat to freedom of expression for the people we serve.\u201d<\/p>\n The firm\u2019s slow-efforts to comply with the new IT rules had cost the firm liability protection in the country<\/a> last month, the Indian government said earlier. Separately, it warned Twitter that the firm was in \u201ctotal noncompliance\u201d with the law.<\/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.<\/p>\n Twitter also received public criticism from several top Indian ministers.<\/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 Prasad, who was the IT minister of India until resigning from the position last month<\/a>, said at a virtual conference early July.<\/p>\n The new rules also require significant social media firms operating encrypted messaging services to devise a way to trace originator of messages for special cases. Several firms including Facebook\u2019s WhatsApp and Signal have not complied with this requirement. WhatsApp has sued the Indian government<\/a> over this requirement.<\/p>\n This is a developing story. More to follow\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/vE47sfASQBE\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Twitter is now complying\u00a0with India\u2019s new IT rules, New Delhi told a court Tuesday, in a move that is expected to ease months-long tension between the American social media network <\/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-25665","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