All platforms must comply with Indian law: MoS IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar after court junks Twitter plea

In response to the development, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said: “All platforms hv to be in compliance with Indian law n @Twitter under @jack repeatedly refused to do so. In response to @GoI_MeitY’s notice for non-compliance they approached Karnataka High Court n judgement.” By Jack he means Jack Dorsey, the Twitter founder.

He said that the court imposed a cost of Rs 50 lakh on the microblogging platform, citing its conduct. “It also refused Twitter’s request to stay the operation of the order,” MoS IT added.

“Punishment for non-compliance is 7 years imprisonment and unlimited fine. That also did not deter your client,” Chandrasekhar said, quoting the Karnataka HC’s order.

The decision comes weeks after Dorsey accused India of threatening to shut down the social media platform in the country unless it complied with orders to restrict accounts critical of the handling of farmer protests in 2021.

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Twitter had filed the plea against 10 blocking orders for 39 URLS issued by the central government between February 2021 and February 2022.

Justice Krishna S Dixit said that the social media company did not give reasons for not complying with the government’s demands for blocking accounts in a timely manner.

Twitter had claimed in its petition that the blocking orders by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTY) under the IT Act were “demonstrating excessive and disproportionate use of powers”.

“I am convinced with contention of the Centre that they have powers to block tweets and block accounts,” the judge said while dismissing Twitter’s petition.

Earlier this month, Chandrasekhar had slammed comments made by Dorsey, who had claimed on a YouTube podcast that the Centre had threatened to shut down the platform in the country.

He lashed out at Dorsey’s statement that the Central government conducted raids on employees’ homes, claiming it was an attempt to “brush out that very dubious period of Twitter’s history”.

“This is an outright lie by @jack – perhaps an attempt to brush out that very dubious period of Twitter’s history. Twitter under Dorsey and his team were in repeated and continuous violations of the India law,” Chandrasekhar had claimed in a tweet.