Centre To Twitter: Stop Beating Around The Bush, Comply With Law Of Land

As Twitter said it was worry over the "potential threat to freedom of expression" plus "core elements" of the new digital rules, the government retorted that the social media site should "stop beating around the bush and comply with the laws of the land" instead of "dictating terms" to the world's largest democracy.

"Twitter needs to stop beating around the bush and comply with the laws of the land. Law making and policy formulations is the sole prerogative of the sovereign and Twitter is just a social media platform and it has no locus in dictating what India's legal policy framework should be," the Ministry of Electronics and IT said .

Condemning Twitter's quote as "totally baseless, false and an attempt to defame India".

"The government of India respects the right of people to ask questions and also criticize on these social media platforms including on Twitter. The government equally respects the right of privacy. However, the only instance of scuttling free speech on Twitter is Twitter itself and its opaque policies, as a result of which people's accounts are suspended and tweets deleted arbitrarily without recourse," said the ministry.

However the government called out Twitter for not reacting against tweets calling "Indian strain" and also those "promoting vaccine hesitancy".

"To keep our service available, we will strive to comply with applicable law in India. But, just as we do around the world, we will continue to be strictly guided by principles of transparency, a commitment to empowering every voice on the service, and protecting freedom of expression and privacy under the rule of law," said a Twitter spokesperson.

"Right now, we are concerned by recent events regarding our employees in India and the potential threat to freedom of expression for the people we serve. We, alongside many in civil society in India and around the world, have concerns with regards to the use of intimidation tactics by the police in response to enforcement of our global Terms of Service, as well as with core elements of the new IT Rules. We plan to advocate for changes to elements of these regulations that inhibit free, open public conversation," the company added.

After marking posts by BJP politicians on an alleged "Congress toolkit" as "manipulated media" Twitter is caught in a controversy.

Meanwhile government few days ago said Twitter to remove the tag. Even Police of Delhi visited Twitter India's offices on Monday to giving notice asking for an detailed explanation.

Social media sites that was not able to comply with the fresh rules will lose protection from lawsuits and prosecution as "intermediaries".

According to reports, this clearly means that they can no longer claim legal immunity from objectionable content posted by users.