Govt tells twitter that lawfully passed orders are binding on any business entity

The Government has conveyed to the Twitter leadership that the manner in which Twitter officially allows fake, unverified, anonymous and automated bot accounts to be operated on its platform, raises doubts about its commitment to transparency and healthy conversation on this platform.  In a statement said that lawfully passed orders are binding on any business entity and they must be obeyed immediately. It said,  if they are executed days later, it becomes meaningless.

Secretary, Electronics and IT Ajay Prakash Sawhney expressed his deep disappointment to Twitter leadership about the manner in which Twitter has unwillingly, grudgingly and with great delay complied with the substantial parts of the order. He took this opportunity to remind Twitter that in India, its Constitution and laws are supreme and  it is expected that responsible entities not only reaffirm but remain committed to compliance to the law of land.

The Secretary  took up the issue of using a hashtag on ‘farmer



genocide’ with Twitter executives and expressed strong displeasure on the way Twitter acted after an emergency order was issued to remove this hashtag and content related to that. He said, spreading misinformation using an incendiary and baseless hashtag referring to  ‘farmer genocide’ at a time when such irresponsible content can provoke and inflame the situation is neither journalistic freedom nor freedom of expression as envisaged under Article 19 of the Constitution of India. 

He said, despite the attention of Twitter being drawn to such content by the Government through a lawful process, the platform  allowed the content with this hashtag to continue, which was extremely unfortunate.

On the request of Twitter, Secretary Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology held a virtual interaction with Ms. Monique Meche, Vice President Global Public Policy and Mr. Jim Baker Deputy General Counsel and Vice President Legal yesterday.