TWITTER has lost its ‘safe harbour’ protection in India over non-compliance with IT rules and failure to appoint key personnel mandated under the new guidelines, despite repeated reminders, and the platform will now be liable for action under the Indian Penal Code for third party unlawful content, sources said. Earlier this month, the Government had given one last chance to Twitter to comply with the new IT rules, that came into effect on May 26, and had issued a stern warning that failure to adhere to the norms will lead to the platform losing exemption from liability under the IT Act. Sources in the Government confirmed that Twitter has lost the safe harbour immunity, as it failed to comply with the IT rules, and appoint key executives under the new guidelines.

 

While the resident grievance officer and the nodal contact person nominated by the company, is not an employee of Twitter Inc in India, the Ministry had also not received any concrete information on Chief Compliance Officer, the name, or details, sources said. Another source said that Twitter’s intermediary status and the legal shield it had, ended automatically on May 26, given its non-compliance with new guidelines. Same is true for any other social media platform, which has not complied with the requirement under the IT rules.

 

The Government has confronted Twitter over multiple instances in the past months, including during the farmers’ protest and later when it tagged political posts of several leaders of the ruling party BJP, as “manipulated media”, triggering a sharp rebuke from the Centre. The last flashpoint was the delay in complying with the IT rules that mandate large digital platforms to undertake greater due diligence as well as appoint a grievance officer, a nodal officer and a chief compliance officer. These personnel have to be residents of India.