In the latest development in the Twitter vs Government of India row, the Ministry of Electronics and IT has strongly refuted all the claims and allegations made by Twitter India. The ministry issued a press release where it asked Twitter to abide by the laws of the land and respect the Freedom of Speech and Expression in true senses.
The government said that India is not only the world’s largest democracy, it has been practicing freedom of expression for centuries. It does not need to learn this from a foreign private, for-profit, company that does not even have a local grievance redressal mechanism.
The government of India, in a strongly-worded statement, slams twitter’s statement; it says “attempt to dictate its terms to the world’s largest democracy”
The press release further said, “Twitter needs to stop beating around the bush and comply with the laws of the land. Twitter is just a social media platform and it has no locus in dictating what should India’s legal policy framework should be.
Twitter’s statement is an attempt to dictate its terms to the world’s largest democracy. Through its actions and deliberate defiance, Twitter seeks to undermine
India’s legal system: Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology pic.twitter.com/WyGumYToYv— ANI (@ANI) May 27, 2021
Twitter is a USA-based private company, in its communique says that it seeks “constructive dialogue”, from the govt of a sovereign democratic republic to “safeguard interests of the public”. It is time that Twitter disabuses itself of this grandiosity & comply with the laws.
The whole matter escalated when a team of Delhi Police raided offices of Twitter India in Delhi and Gurugram on the basis of an FIR lodged by the Congress Party. Apparently, the Bhartiya Janata Party claimed that it has exposed Congress’s “Toolkit” to defame India. Congress Party filed a complaint against the BJP. While all this was happening, Twitter leveled the tweets by BJP representatives on the Toolkit as “Manipulated Media”.
The Delhi Police sent a notice to Twitter asking them to share the information from where they got to know that the said claim by BJP was “manipulated”. When Twitter did not respond to the Delhi Police’s notice, neither it removed the “manipulated” tag from the tweets, a team of Delhi Police searched Twitter India’s offices.
