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According to an official police statement, police in India summoned the country’s top Twitter official to respond to allegations that the U.S. company is spreading hatred and hostility online. IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad slammed Twitter India a week after the incident in Ghaziabad, saying that its failure to act was confusing.
This week, the police in Ghaziabad, north of Uttar Pradesh, shared a video shared by Twitter users in which several men, mostly Hindus, beat a beaded elderly man who appears to be Muslim. State police registered a case after the video showed a man – apparently a Hindu – kicking an elderly man believed to be a Muslim. The controversy came after India’s federal government with Twitter Inc. locked up for failing to comply with certain federal regulations. This raised concerns that Twitter, Inc. could no longer enjoy the protection of user-generated content.
The controversy arose after the Indian federal government issued a warning to Twitter for violating a certain federal rule, raising concerns that the company no longer enjoys the protection of user-generated content. A controversy has erupted after the Indian government suspended Twitter for violating a federal rule.
A Delhi Police Special Cell team visited Bengaluru on May 31 to question Twitter CEO Manish Maheshwari over posts by BJP leaders claiming that Congress was behind a plot, prompting the party to file a counterfeiting complaint. Police also visited Twitter’s offices in New Delhi to summon Congress social media chief Rohan Gupta and party spokesman M. V. Rajeev Gowda to file the complaint. The tweet from Delhi Police came after the social media giant posted posts by party leaders accusing the Congress of slandering the prime minister.
The legal notice instructed Maheshwari to appear at Loni Border Police Station within seven days to record his testimony. An official police statement viewed by Reuters shows that a case was registered in Ghaziabad, northern Uttar Pradesh, which says the video stoked hatred and enmity between Hindu and Muslim communities. In a statement on Thursday, the Ghaziabad Police said Indian Twitter chief Manish Maheshwari would appear before officials within a period of “seven days” of receiving the summons.
The case relates to a video showing 72-year-old Abdul Samad Saifi being taken by several men from an autorickshaw and locked in a secluded house. On June 5 Saifi, a 72-year-old resident of Uttar Pradesh, Ghaziabad, an industrial city on the outskirts of the capital, was offered a ride in an auto-rickshaw by a man who was taken to an isolated location and beaten for hours while cowering in pain on a cot.
The video, which caused a furor, showed the elderly Muslim man shaving his beard. Twitter users shared the video after news reports said he had been forced to chant “Jai Shri Ram” (Hail Lord Ram), a rallying cry from Hindu nationalists. Twitter declined to comment on the video, which was available on the platform until Friday.
Three members of the opposition Congress party, all Muslims, were booked for their tweets about the attacks. In the case of tweets of the wire journalists Rana Ayyub, Saba Naqvi, and Mohammad Zubair, Congress leaders Salman Nizami Masqoor and Usmani Sama Mohammad claimed that the journalists had posted tweets to incite community unrest.
Uttar Pradesh police have charged Manish Maheshwari, chief executive of Twitter India, with failing to prevent a viral video of an attack on an elderly Muslim man in Loni, Ghaziabad, from going viral, causing chaos and contributing to hostility between religious groups. The notice was served to Maheshwari on Thursday evening under Section 161 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which allows investigating officers to appear to be a person familiar with the facts and circumstances of a case.
Try updating your browser Twitter’s in India woes worsened when police summoned their top officers across the country for a video-game report ‘Twitter Inc.’, his local unit, and seven others for their alleged role in the dissemination of a video that incited hatred and hostility between Hindu and Muslim communities. The Chief Executive of Twitter India, Manish Maheshwari, will appear within seven days before the Uttar Pradesh police to record his testimony, said Akhilesh Kumar Mishra, the investigating officer in the case.
UN Human Rights Council last week called on the central government to review new IT rules, declaring their expanded scope was incompatible with international human rights standards and threatened digital rights. Indian activists have also petitioned a panel convened by the chief executive of US technology companies such as Facebook and Alphabet Incs Google to question them on issues such as tax compliance and privacy. The petition, filed by a group of activists, came a day after the panel to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey were called to discuss ways to protect civil rights on social media and online platforms.
The rules also state that in the event of non-compliance, the safeguards that companies enjoy with regard to liability for user-generated content are not applicable and companies could be penalized under the law.
After all, rules are rules every company or individual doing business in India is bound to obey the rules as per the Indian government.
