Twitter’s had a rough go of it in India for a solid minute now. Back in April the Indian government had the social media platform delete tweets critical of its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. A month later the government laid out a new set of policies regarding moderation on the platform and on Facebook. Now, the platform’s managing director in India, Manish Maheshwari, has been given a week to appear before the Ghaziabad police regarding a viral video.
Taking Twitter to jail
The tweet in question contains a video showing an elderly Muslim man being attacked in Ghaziabad. After filing an official case, the Ghaziabad police force have sent a notice to Maheshwari demanding that he appear before it to record a statement on the matter.
Ghaziabad Police sent legal notice to Managing Director of Twitter India over viral video of an elderly man in Loni being assaulted with the intent of "provoking communal unrest"
The MD has been asked to come to the Police Station Loni Border & record the statement within 7 days pic.twitter.com/u5Ct8Omq6l
— ANI UP/Uttarakhand (@ANINewsUP) June 18, 2021
The notice, translated into English, reads:
“Some people are using Twitter to try and spread animosity and tension between communities. Twitter has taken no action against this and allowed these messages to go viral and reach a larger audience across the country. Investigation for this issue is ongoing and your participation is mandatory. You have to report to the Loni border police station within seven days.”
This in light of the aforementioned new content policy social media platforms are expected to comply with in India, a stipulation of which demands that the platform take down ‘unlawful’ content within a 24 hours of a request being made. Whether Maheshwari actually appears before the police or not and what the ramifications are remains to be seen. If there’s one thing for certain, it’s that Twitter is facing an uphill battle in India, and it seems to be getting steeper.
Source: The Next Web