NEW DELHI: The government has given Twitter India “one one last opportunity” to follow the new IT Rules in the country. The new deadline to comply with the IT Rules is July 4, 2022 and if it fails to do so then it may risk “losing its immunity as an intermediary”, according to a report by The Economic Times.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s (MeitY) highlighted that Twitter India “repeated failed to act on the content take-down notices sent under Section 69 A of the IT Act”. Also, Twitter India did not act on “non-compliance notices issued for not taking the content down,” as per the report. The government sent a notice on June 27 pointing out that Twitter failed to follow directions on notices sent to them on June 6 and 9. The notice was issued to Twitter’s Chief Compliance Officer.
According to the report, as for punishment for not following rules, Twitter India could face “loss of immunity as available (to) an intermediary under sub-section (1) of section 79 of the IT Act and (will be) liable to punishment to offences as prescribed in the IT Act 2000.”
Last year in June, the government issued a similar notice to Twitter giving it one last chance to “immediately” comply with the new IT rules and warned that failure to adhere to the norms will lead to the platform losing exemption from liability under the IT Act. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) had said that Twitter’s refusal to comply with the rules demonstrated the microblogging site’s “lack of commitment and efforts towards providing a safe experience for the people of India on its platform”.
