While the social-media platform, Twitter, is dragging its feet in regard to compliance with the provisions of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, there is growing evidence of this company's double standards and what one would regard as direct interference in the internal affairs of our country.
Being a global giant with a net worth far bigger than the GDP of many nations, the company has begun to imagine itself as bigger than the Indian Republic. Before we do anything else, we need to help the company overcome this conflict with reality.
Hopefully, the recent Delhi High Court order directing it to comply with the new rules will have a sobering effect, because its public posturing in recent times smacks of an affront to the Constitution and the laws of India.
Twitter claimed recently that it had proved to be vital "for public conversation and a source of support for people during the pandemic” and that consequently, it is concerned about “the potential threat to freedom of expression for the people we serve".
The usefulness of social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook for human conversations is undeniable, just as many other technological advances in various fields such as motor transport, aviation, telephony, robotics, the internet, etc., over the last two centuries have promoted human communication, mobility, health care, etc., and have contributed to human advancement. All these developments have also contributed to the advancement of democracy and fundamental rights like freedom of expression, movement, trade and profession. But that cannot make any motor or aviation company the sole arbiter when it comes to freedom of movement. Nor does it give a telecom company the right to adjudicate on freedom of communication.
Twitter has responded to the new IT regulations by saying that it is "deeply committed to the people of India" and that along with civil society in India and around the world, it has "concerns" about "core elements of the new IT Rules". It claims that some aspects of these regulations “inhibit free, open public conversation".
Ravishankar Prasad, the Union Minister for IT, has called out Twitter and exposed its hollowness. The government has said that while it respects privacy, the only instance of scuttling free speech on Twitter has been done by the company itself through its opaque policies "as a result of which people’s accounts are suspended and tweets deleted arbitrarily without recourse".
The international news channel Wion has also called out the micro-blogging site and provided an exemplary example of Twitter's opacity and double standards.
The channel’s popular anchor Palki Upadhyay reported that Wion's weekend edition of Grativas Plus on May 30 on women's reproductive freedom, women's rights and the right to abortion, broadcast only on digital media, was "filtered" out by Twitter.
The ten-minute video, which was based on research and data, argued for repeal of regressive laws and giving women a choice. Twitter branded this "sensitive material", filtered it out and restricted the channel’s access to conversation on the video.
As a result, the channel’s social media team could not see viewers responses. Does a conversation on abortion qualify as "sensitive material"?
The channel quoted one expert, Jitin Jain, who said, "Twitter is today attempting to control global content discourse from a corporate board room. Its decisions on content are often opaque and smack of policy contradictions and double standards, often guided by the political atmosphere rather than long-term policy and principles."
This is indeed a sharp indictment of Twitter and the site, which is given to so much of grand-standing, will have to clean up its act. Also, the company must certainly resist the temptation to deliver sermons. It claimed, "It is the collective responsibility of elected officials, industry, and civil society to safeguard the interests of the public."
By doing so, it seeks to place itself on par with elected officials (persons chosen by the people to head the executive branch of government) and Indian civil society. This is clearly out of line. No company, Indian or international, can claim parity with an elected government that has been given the mandate by the people. Nor can it say that it is in the same league as India's civil society.
In fact, by its obstinacy, Twitter has provoked a razor-sharp response from the Union government, which has said, "Twitter needs to stop beating around the bush and comply with the laws of the land. Lawmaking and policy formulations are the sole prerogative of the sovereign. Twitter is just a social media platform and it has no locus in dictating what India’s legal policy framework should be." One wonders whether any government in India has had to be so blunt with any other corporation.
With regards to safeguarding the interests of citizens, Twitter must be told in unequivocal terms that neither the Constitution nor the people of India have outsourced this responsibility to any individual or corporation. Under the Constitution, the executive, the legislature and the judiciary share this responsibility. Therefore, no citizen or institution will allow Twitter to become a supra entity that will legislate, execute and adjudicate and, above all, become the supreme dispenser of fundamental freedoms in our country.
One hopes Twitter will contain itself while dealing with the world’s largest and most vibrant democracy. It would be delusionary for it to think that a Republic of Twitter can supplant the Republic of India. If it does not understand this basic truth, it will learn it the hard way!
(The writer is a former Chairman, Prasar Bharati and Scholar, Democracy Studies and can be contacted at suryamedia@gmail.com)