The Indian government has given Twitter what it called a last chance to comply with its new regulations for large online social media platforms that came into effect on May 26.
The new rules include proactive monitoring, blanket authority to seek information about users and a requirement to appoint an India-based compliance officer who will be criminally liable for content published on the platform.
Twitter has expressed its concern over some of these rules and also sought time to implement them.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology in its letter asked Twitter to immediately comply with the rules, failing which it would lose its exemption from liability and face “consequences,” IANS news agency reported.
The new guidelines identify social media platforms with over 5 million users as “significant intermediaries.” If they fail to comply with the new guidelines, these platforms can lose their status as intermediaries, which means they will be open to legal action for something posted on their platform along with the poster.
The IT ministry’s letter did not mention a deadline, IANS reported.
But it came on a day when a new controversy emerged, with Twitter briefly removing the blue verified tick sign from the account of the country’s vice president, Venkaiah Naidu, saying the account had been dormant for a while, only to restore it after complaints.
India has been engaged in a stand-off with Twitter over several issues in recent months, including its labelling of a tweet by one of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s spokesmen as “manipulated.”
