Farmer Tweets: In Meeting With Top Twitter Officials, IT Secretary Expressed ‘Deep Disappointment’

The government's press release notes that Twitter requested for "better engagement", but is silent about whether the Centre plans on taking action against the social media company for its 'non-compliance'.

 

 

New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government’s standoff with Twitter over the fate of several prominent accounts and tweets continued on Wednesday, with senior officials of India’s IT ministry having a virtual meeting with top Twitter executives.

The meeting comes nearly two weeks after the Centre threatened the company’s officials with jail time for not taking down specific tweets and handles that were connected to the recent farmer protests, and less than a day after the social media

  

firm responded that it would not block the accounts of journalists, activists and politicians even if they were part of a legal censorship order.

According to a government press release, the IT secretary expressed “strong displeasure” over the way Twitter acted after an emergency blocking order was issued to remove the ‘farmer genocide’ hashtag and content associated with that.

“Spreading misinformation using an incendiary and baseless hashtag referring to  ‘farmer genocide’ at a time when such irresponsible content can provoke and inflame the situation is  neither journalistic freedom nor freedom of expression as envisaged under Article 19 of the Constitution of India. Despite the attention of Twitter being drawn to such content by the Government through a lawful process, the platform  allowed the content with this hashtag to continue, which was extremely unfortunate,” the release noted.

The IT secretary also appeaars to have drawn a parallel between the action taken by Twitter in the aftermath of the Capitol Hill episode and its apparent inaction after the disturbance at Red Fort.

For its part, the Twitter leadership — which included Monique Meche, Vice President Global Public Policy, and Jim Baker, Deputy General Counsel and Vice President Legal — affirmed its commitment towards “following Indian laws and rules”.

The executives, according to the press release,  also expressed their “continuing commitment” towards building their services in India and requested for “better engagement”  between the Centre and Twitter’s global team.

 

Social media is bold.

Social media is young.

Social media raises questions.

 Social media is not satisfied with an answer.

Social media looks at the big picture.

 Social media is interested in every detail.

social media is curious.

 Social media is free.

Social media is irreplaceable.

But never irrelevant.

Social media is you.

(With input from news agency language)

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