The Twitter has lost its legal shield in India, after the social media giant failed to comply with the new IT rules laid down by the Central Government.
As per the new IT rules, Twitter required to appoint key officers based in the country, government sources said.
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“Twitter has lost its status as intermediary platform in India due to non-compliance with new IT rules,” Government sources were quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
“This means instead of being considered just a platform hosting content from various users, Twitter will be directly editorially responsible for posts published on its platform,” sources added.
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The implication of this development is that if there is any charge against Twitter, for alleged unlawful content, it would be treated as a publisher – not an intermediary – and be liable for punishment under any law, including IT Act, as also the penal laws of the country.
According to reports, a case has already been filed in Uttar Pradesh against Twitter over “tweets on an assault that the police say attempted to incite communal trouble”.
The case against Twitter was filed on Tuesday night at a police station in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad “in connection with an alleged assault on an elderly Muslim man on June 5”.
Twitter has reportedly been accused of not removing ‘misleading’ content linked to the incident.