‘You have to comply with new IT laws,’ Delhi HC orders Twitter, gives 3 weeks time

In what spells further trouble for Twitter, the Delhi High Court has ordered the social media giant to comply with the new IT rules while granting three week’s time to Twitter to state on record that it has appointed a resident grievance officer.

The Delhi High Court while hearing a plea against Twitter for alleged non-compliance of rules, stated that the US-based microblogging platform must comply with the new IT rules unless they are stayed. The petition stated that Twitter has not appointed a resident grievance officer in accordance with the rules whereas, senior advocate Sajan Poovayya, representing Twitter, informed the court that the officer was appointed on May 28.

It is pertinent to note that Twitter stated that a resident grievance officer was not appointed at the time of filing of the petition but has been appointed now.

The petition also alleged that Twitter has appointed a US resident as a grievance officer but the same “is not in true sense implementation of the Rule 4 of Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules 2021.”

The Delhi High Court has set the next hearing date on July 6.

Recently, the Ministry of Electronics and IT in response to Twitter;s statement asked that if Twitter was indeed so committed, why it had not placed a similar mechanism in the first place. The Indian government pointed out the lack of accountability on the part of Twitter and how Indians are asked to escalate everything to the Twitter headquarters in the USA.

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The Modi government has taken a tough stance against the social media company and has reiterated that the company must comply with the new social media guidelines as it is just a social media company and is in no position to dictate what should India’s legal policy framework be.

The microblogging platform, however, made it clear that it would comply with the new guidelines, saying, “To keep our service available, we will strive to comply with applicable law in India. But, just as we do around the world, we will continue to be strictly guided by principles of transparency, a commitment to empowering every voice on the service, and protecting freedom of expression and privacy under the rule of law.” The statement makes it clear that Twitter will ‘comply with applicable law’ only to keep its service operational in India.