After not being able to appoint statutory officers on time, Twitter has lost the coveted “safe harbour” immunity in India.

According to a report by Times of India, the company’s top executives, including the country managing director, could now face police questioning and criminal liability over ‘unlawful’ and ‘inflammatory’ content posted on the platform by any user.

With this, Twitter becomes the only American platform to have lost the protective shield – granted under Section 79 of the IT Act, even though others such as, YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp and remain protected.

Companies had to originally appoint the officers by May 25, but many were delayed as they blamed the lockdown and other technical challenges for their failure to comply with the rules.

Reacting to the developments, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Minister for Electronics & Information Technology, said it is “astounding that Twitter which portrays itself as the flag bearer of free speech, chooses the path of deliberate defiance when it comes to the Intermediary Guidelines”.

“Further, what is perplexing is that Twitter fails to address the grievances of users by refusing to set up process as mandated by the law of the land. Additionally, it chooses a policy of flagging manipulates media, only when it suits, its likes and dislikes,” he added.

There are numerous queries arising as to whether Twitter is entitled to safe harbour provision. However, the simple fact of the matter is that Twitter has failed to comply with the Intermediary Guidelines that came into effect from the 26th of May.

— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) June 16, 2021

Twitter Chief Compliance Officer

Twitter had earlier stated that it has appointed an interim Chief Compliance
Officer and the details of the official will be shared directly with the IT
Ministry soon.

The move came after the government had given one last chance to Twitter to
comply with the new IT rules, as the microblogging platform had not made
immediate appointments of key personnel.

The US-based company had assured the Indian government last week that it is in
the advanced stages of finalising the appointment of a chief compliance
officer, and that it would submit additional details within a week.

A Twitter spokesperson on Tuesday said the company continues to make every
effort to comply with the new guidelines and is keeping the IT ministry
apprised of progress at every step of the process.

Twitter has had several faceoffs with the Indian government over the past
months, including during the farmers’ protest and later when it tagged
political posts of several leaders of the ruling party BJP as “manipulated
media”, triggering a sharp rebuke from the Centre.

The micro-blogging site has an estimated 1.75 crore users in India, as per
data cited by the government recently.

It has stated on its website that India is an important market for the company
and is among the countries in which it is piloting a new approach of building
an in-market team to “locally tailor” its global product to the needs of the
region.

What The New IT Rules Say

The new digital rules require significant social media intermediaries —
providing services primarily in the nature of messaging — to enable
identification of the “first originator” of the information that undermines
the sovereignty of India, the security of the state, or public order.

It say that significant social media intermediaries, those with more than 50
lakh users, are required to appoint a grievance officer, a nodal officer and a
chief compliance officer. The personnel have to be residents in India.

Social media firms will also have to take down flagged content within 36
hours, and remove within 24 hours content that is flagged for issues such as
nudity and pornography.