The new IT rules have been a point of contention between Big Tech companies and the Indian Government. The most flared-up tussle has been between the Government of India and Twitter. The new IT rules issued by the government caused much ruckus with the social media companies, with Twitter facing the wrath of police as well. However, in a new positive turn of events, companies like Facebook, Instagram and Google have issued compliance reports with the new IT rules, as part of which they have removed a lot of content from their platforms among many categories. One social media which is still missing from this list is Twitter; hence it’s safe to say that the tussle between Twitter and the Government of India continues to persist.
Google and Facebook Appreciated for Positive Step
The new IT rules have been issued to curb the blatant abuse and misuse of these platforms by anti-social elements and to remove content that might be abusive and threatening to the users and security and integrity of the nation. As per the new PTI report, three officers required as per the new IT rules include a compliance officer, a grievance officer, and a nodal officer. These three positions have to be filled by the companies by Indian residents. Previously, one of the companies had appointed a foreigner as a grievance officer, which led to further flaring up of issues.
Twitter Still in Defiance of New Rules
The new issuance of compliance reports by Google, Facebook, and Instagram has been lauded by Ravi Shankar Prasad, IT minister, who remarked that this is a big step towards transparency in his tweet. India reports having 53 crore WhatsApp users, 41 crore Facebook users, and 21 crore Instagram users. Because Twitter has not yet complied with the new IT rules, it has lost its intermediary status, which means that it is now liable for the abusive content posted on its website.
Google remarked that it removed 59,350 pieces of content, whereas Facebook “actioned” around 30 million pieces of content across 10 violation categories in the May-June month. Instagram, on the other hand, actioned 2 million content pieces across nine categories. Now it remains to be seen what's Twitter's take on this matter.
