The Uttar Pradesh government has become the first to book Twitter in a criminal offence after the social media company failed to comply so far with the new IT rules that had come into effect from May 26.
Sources in the central government told News18 that social media companies have to comply with the rules to get safe harbour protection and absence of the same exposes them to become liable for fake news, harassment and defamation on its platform. The Uttar Pradesh Police invoked the same in an FIR lodged late on Tuesday night against Twitter Inc. and Twitter Communications India PVT for not taking down content regarding the assault on an elderly Muslim man in Loni, Ghaziabad. The Centre was also concerned over the tensions emerging in UP due to misinformation spread over the incident, officials have told News18.
It is expected that the UP Police would now want to question Twitter representatives in the case on why the content was not removed, sources in the state government told News18. The case of the UP Police is that three persons had been already arrested in the case and a statement was put out by the Ghaziabad Police on the night of June 14 but still no action was taken by Twitter even 24 hours later to remove misleading content that was creating communal tensions in UP, leading the FIR on June 15 night. “Twitter’s behavior in this incident is a departure from their move earlier to label certain tweets as ‘Manipulated Media’,” an official said.
The FIR has been lodged under offences IPC sections 153, 153A, 295A, 505, 120-B and 34 for causing an offence that can cause rioting, for promoting enmity between communities, a deliberate act to outrage religious feelings and criminal conspiracy – which attract a 3-year jail term. The FIR accuses certain individuals, including journalists, for deliberately tweeting wrong information regarding the Loni incident and says these tweets were retweeted in large numbers which had potential to create enmity between communities and cause tensions.
“The fake news was spread in a big way due to these tweets but they were not deleted despite clarifications from the police and this was increasing communal tensions. Also, Twitter Inc. and Twitter Communication India Private Limited did not take any steps to remove such tweets,” the FIR has mentioned. The questionable tweets and content alluded to the Muslim man being attacked for communal reasons while the police investigation found it was a personal dispute and people from both communities were involved in the assault.
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