‘Indian Law Enforcement’ Asks Twitter To Take Action against Cartoonist Manjul’s Handle

Cartoonist Manjul on Friday shared an email he received from Twitter sent in the “interest of transparency” that the microblogging site had received a request from the “Indian law enforcement” regarding his handle @MANJULtoons violating Indian laws.

“As Twitter strongly believes in defending and respecting the voice of our users, it is our policy to notify our users if we receive a legal request from an authorized entity (such as law enforcement or a government agency) to remove content from their account. We provide notice whether or not the user lives in the country where the request originated,” read the email.

Twitter also mentioned taking appropriate action to protect the user’s interest and suggested that he can seek legal counsel challenging the request in court or contact relevant civil society organisations or voluntarily delete the content in question, or find some other resolution.

Manjul further tweeted that it would have been easier for him and convenient for others if the government had mentioned which tweet was the problem.

These are some of Manjul’s cartoons portraying the current pandemic situation in the country and criticising the Centre’s mismanagement of it.

This notice to the cartoonist comes amidst the ongoing tiff between Twitter and the Indian government.

On Saturday, the central government gave final notice to Twitter to comply with the new IT rules 2021. This came after Twitter Inc issued a statement on Monday saying that it would “strive to comply” with Indian laws in response to a notice issued by the Delhi High Court for the microblogging site’s non-compliance with the new IT Rules.

On February 25, India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) introduced the Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules to regulate content on OTT platforms, social media intermediaries and digital news media. These rules were slated to come into effect after 90 days, on May 25.

According to the new IT Rules, social media intermediaries, including WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube, have to establish a ‘grievance redressal mechanism’ for receiving and resolving complaints from users or victims; remove child pornography, videos relating to rape or any kind of nudity, or disable access to such content, within 24 hours of receiving complaints. It will have to identify the originator of disputed content without providing any information to the originator.

The new IT Rules mandate social media intermediaries to appoint officers who are Indian citizens to key compliance roles that have oversight over the additional due diligence required for removal of content. Abiding by the new IT Rules will also hold “significant” social media intermediaries accountable to Indian laws, and in case they fail to adhere to the code, it will lead to their loss of protection from lawsuits and criminal prosecution.

Tweets removed on Centre’s orders

Recommended

Box Office Report: Anushka Sharma’s ‘Pari’ Earns Rs 4.36 Crores On Its Opening Day

‘Biskoth’ Will Be For Santhanam What ‘Imsai Arasan 23am Pulikesi’ Was For Vadivelu: Director Kannan

SC Directs Latha Rajinikanth To Repay Loan Of Rs 6.20 Crore Borrowed For ‘Kochadaiiyaan’

Recently, in April, Twitter India removed over 50 tweets on the Centre’s orders that were found to be critical of the Central government for the mismanagement of the second wave of Covid-19. The government had directed Twitter to take action on the grounds that the specified tweets violated India’s IT Act 2000.

Before that, Twitter had blocked over 250 accounts that actively posted updates on the farmers’ protest against the three Farm Bills passed during the 2020 monsoon session of the Parliament.

Further, the Central government again asked the microblogging giant to suspend 1,178 accounts, which they claimed were backed by Pakistan or operated by supporters of the ongoing farmers’ protest from what they term ‘Khalistan’.