What's new

Welcome

If you already have an account, please login, but if you don't have one yet, you are more than welcome to freely join the community of lawyers around the world..

Register Log in
  • We don't have any responsibilities about the news being sent in this site. Legal News are automatically being collected from sources and submitted in this forum by feed readers. Source of each news is set in the news and a link to its source is always added.
    (Any News older than 21 days from its post time will be deleted automatically!)

Jurist India government: Twitter no longer enjoys immunity for user-generated content

Status
Not open for further replies.
  • Thread starter
  • Staff
  • #1

Dadparvar

Staff member
Nov 11, 2016
10,605
0
6
The government of India stated in an affidavit on Tuesday that US microblogging platform Twitter has lost its legal immunity against claims arising from user-generated content due to its failure to comply with the country’s new technology rules.

The rules, known as the Information Technology (Guidelines For Intermediaries And Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, were notified by the central government in February this year for regulating digital content publishers such as social media intermediaries and online news platforms. They require social media intermediaries to provide a grievance redressal mechanism to Indian citizens, including the appointment of a chief compliance officer, nodal contact person, and grievance redressal officer.

Twitter has been embroiled in controversies with the authorities for its opposition to the new rules, with multiple statements on the protection of free speech being released back and forth, the company’s officials being summoned before a bipartisan parliamentary panel and the Delhi High Court warning the company that it cannot “take as much time as it wants” for compliance given that the deadline for the rules passed in the last week of May.

Although Twitter had in June appointed an interim compliance officer for grievance redressal as required under Rule 4 of the new IT Rules, the officer was not an employee of Twitter and eventually resigned within a few weeks of appointment.

The consequence of losing legal immunity from user-generated content, i.e. safe harbor protection under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act 2000, is that Twitter will be liable for any punishment under any law in respect of offending content posted on its platform. The company is already facing several lawsuits in India, including child pornographic content and an allegedly manipulated hate crime video.

The company informed the Delhi High Court on Thursday that it has appointed an interim chief compliance officer and will strive to fill the regular posts within eight weeks. Digital rights organizations such as the Internet Freedom Foundation have highlighted that until a court adjudicates the government’s claim of Twitter losing its immunity, the company will face no immediate consequences of non-compliance. It may however find itself facing several lawsuits until the courts decide on its intermediary status and ultimately the constitutionality of the new rules.

The post India government: Twitter no longer enjoys immunity for user-generated content appeared first on JURIST - News - Legal News & Commentary.

Continue reading...

Note: We don't have any responsibilities about this news. Its been posted here by Feed Reader and we had no controls and checking on it. And because News posted here will be deleted automatically after 21 days, threads are closed so that no one spend time to post and discuss here. You can always check the source and discuss in their site.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top