Minister Slams Twitter, Warns Against "Weaponisation Of Misinformation"

Union minister Rajiv Chandrasekhar today said that the Central government's requests to Twitter to take down posts is only a fraction of what comes from other nations, including the US and Germany. The government, he added, is just trying to create some boundaries in an area where none exists.

Twitter went to court earlier this year alleging that the government was attempting to target journalistic and political content, citing a series of takedown orders in the wake of farmer protests.

Asked about the issue at the India Global Forum in Dubai, Mr Chandrasekhar, who handles the information technology and electronics portfolio, told NDTV that he wants to "correct the myth that we are some great takedown nation".

If the absolute figures look large, it is because there are 800 million Indians online. "Our percentage of takedown requests is a fraction of what Germany does, the US does -- as a percentage of total users," he said.

The government, he added, is trying to push home three basic "boundary conditions": The internet must be open and "free from any influence, state or enterprise wide"; it has to be safe and trusted place and every platform must be accountable to its user in a very defined, predictable way.

"We are trying to create some boundary conditions around the space that has never had any regulation. And the reason it has never had any regulation is that for years, governments of the world were happy to consider the platform as innovators, not requiring regulation and not requiring oversight," Mr Chandrasekhar said. "Now we see that the internet, as much as it does good, it also does harm," he added, underscoring the need for regulation.

Asked about the takedown requests during the farmers' protests against the farm laws, Mr Chandrasekhar denied that there has been any infringement.

Questioning why Twitter did not go to court when the takedown notice was issued, he said, "They did this only when we sent the notice on non-compliance under the law for a certain set of other things, the intermediary issue. And so, on the face of a non-compliance notice that was sent by the government of India to them, they rake up an issue of 14 months ago, and make a case that we are trying to infringe on their right. We are not doing any of that," he said.

"We don't necessarily want to play God in terms of who is the platform and who's not. But we certainly expect all the platforms to conform to the rules comply with the rules, and the laws of India to be non-negotiable. And who do hide behind some imaginary guidelines or community guidelines that has been merrily routed by your own management is not something that we will accept anymore," he added.  

The social media giant went to court in July this year, challenging orders to take down content amid an escalating face-off with the government. The government, it contended, wants to block some content posted by handles belonging to political parties. This, Twitter contended, amounts to violation of Freedom of speech.

Calling the order arbitrary, Twitter -- which has not largely complied with government orders to take down content -- had sought a judicial review.

The government had said that the tweets in question were spreading misinformation.

"We have said very clearly and I have said recently, that the weaponisation of misinformation is a clear and present danger to safety and trust on the internet. And that is something that we will very, very closely examine," Mr Chandrasekhar said.