The Lok Sabha Standing Committee on Information Technology on Monday decided to call Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for the recent inquisition of the platform to appear before it on 25 February. Recently, the committee also decided to summon other important platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp along other platforms on the issue of “Safeguarding Citizens Rights on Social/Online News Media Platforms”.
As per the reports, it was expected to call Facebook and WhatsApp in March. The committee is presently keen on inspecting Twitter’s global executives. The inquisition is supposed to be slightly different for Facebook and WhatsApp than that of Twitter. The cross-questioning is based on prime issues like citizen rights, social media biasing, and data privacy.
The house panel had to call Twitter on 11 February for hearing due to the allegations on Twitter of having a bias against right-wing ideology after ‘Youth for Social Media Democracy’ right-wing group protested outside Twitter India office.
Colin Crowell, Twitter Vice-president in a blog post, rebutted the allegations, that read, “Our product and policies are never developed nor evolved on the basis of political ideology.”
Twitter executives reasoned for not appearing to the parliamentary hearing on 11 February in a cited short notice. This piqued the house panel committee and declared as a breach of privilege. The standing committee has summoned Jack Dorsey, Twitter CEO to appear before the panel on February 25.
WhatsApp owned Facebook company refused to act in accordance with the Indian Government demands putting itself at stake.
Besides all the anxieties, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has proffered a draft of amendments to Intermediary Guidelines, that could make these platforms liable for the content their users share. It also insists on tracking the source of unlawful content and to take down in 72 hours.
Asia Internet Coalition strictly condemned the draft rules stating that it is in violation with various principles supported by the Supreme Court of India and the IT Act.
