Parliamentary Committee directive to Twitter : Will Serious measures be Taken?

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The Controversy involving the Social Media Platform: Twitter, refuses to die down. There have been many developments related to the allegations, by many on Twitter, all round the world that it is acting in a very biased manner by supporting the Left leaning organizations and handles whereas, it is restricting the Right wing counterparts.
With one of the largest base of users in India,Twitter cannot ignore the calls to introspect on its policy which is currently being criticized and looked at with magnifying lens.  In this connection, Youth for Social Democracy held a protest on 3rd February outside the Twitter office in the National Capital. The protests were held to bring to notice of the Government that the Social Media Platform has been leaning towards leftist handles and working against the Right wing:

The protests were about multiple issues:
1. Suspending the Right Wing handles;
2. Tweaking the feed to reduce reach of nationalist handles;
3. Tweaking with Algorithms;
4. Removing the trends started by Right wing even when on the top of trending charts etc.

Responding to this Anurag Thakur headed Parliamentary Committee on Information Technology had through a letter dated February1 summoned the senior members of Twitter to appear on February 11th.

The Parliamentary Commitee on Information Technology will examine the issue:

SAFEGUARDING CITIZENS RIGHTS ON SOCIAL/ONLINE NEWS MEDIA PLATFORMS

MEITY & TWITTER will present their views.

You can tweet/email your views:
[email protected] pic.twitter.com/bDYoSv5OHd

— Anurag Thakur (@ianuragthakur) February 5, 2019

After massive protests outside #Twitter India office in #Delhi, of bias against the right wing, they have been summoned by the Parliamentary committee on IT to explain allegations of bias against it. @TwitterIndia will present their case on 11th at 3 PM.#BreakingNews pic.twitter.com/cc3w7pAUGQ

— IndSamachar News (@Indsamachar) February 5, 2019

In response to the letter from the Committee, the Twitter top brass headed by Jack Dorsey had refused to appear before them. This had created lot of controversy on Social Media particularly because, this was initiated primarily due to the protests held by Youth for Social Democracy and there was severe criticism about the handling of the same by Twitter.

The Parliamentary Commitee on Information Technology takes very serious note of this.

We will take appropriate action on 11th February.

Citizens are welcome to send their concerns/issues via email to the Parliamentary Commitee.

[email protected] https://t.co/oKBzdoJkhV

— Anurag Thakur (@ianuragthakur) February 9, 2019

 

As the issue was taken very seriously and the Government was mulling action against the Social Media Platform, Twitter deputed its junior officials from Indian operations to appear before the committee. This did not go well with the committee.
It is now learnt that , the Committee passed a resolution, unanimously, that they would not meet any Twitter officials until senior members or the CEO of Twitter’s global team deposed before the committee. Now Twitter is said to have been given 15 days time for it to ensure the appearance of its Senior Officials before the Parliamentary committee.

Twitter India must convey strong and clear message to its ceo @jack that only senior officials will be given chance of hearing in front of Indian Parliamentary committee on IT led by @ianuragthakur ji.
Nobody can challenge authority of our parliament (temple of democracy).

— khemchand sharma (@SharmaKhemchand) February 11, 2019

All this has severely hit Twitter with many handles criticizing the functioning of its India specific narrative. It remains to be seen what would come out of the next meeting scheduled after 15 days.

Courtesy : Twitter Links