Parliamentary panel grills Twitter, FB over locking Amit Shah's account, WA policy

New Delhi, January 22: Parliamentary standing committee on Information Technology led by Shashi Tharoor, grilled the representatives of social media giants Twitter and Facebook over “safeguarding citizens’ rights and prevention of misuse of social/online news media platforms.”

 

 

 

During the interaction with Twitter representatives, the committee cross-examined Twitter, Some BJP members raised questions about twitter's fact-checking mechanism and wondered how the account of the country's home minister was locked.

 

Responding to the questions, Twitter then said that Shah's account was temporarily locked due to an "inadvertent error" and the decision was reversed immediately. Shah's Twitter display picture was removed by Twitter in response to a "report from the copyright holder". Last year Shah's Twitter display picture was removed by Twitter in response to a "report from the copyright holder".

 

Committee members also flagged the issue of Twitter misrepresenting the Indian map, a member said. When some members asked the basis on which Twitter was removing contents and blocking accounts the company representatives said they want to create a "healthy platform".

 

Apart from Twitter, members also interrogate Facebook representative on the ongoing controversy over WhatsApp’s privacy policy. They also questioned FB that how the new WhatsApp policy will affect the users. The panel members said: “India’s privacy law should be implemented in this matter so that the concerns of the people of India can be addressed.” On which, Facebook officials said to the panel that this policy is in force since 2016. “It is an old policy. Facebook is just being transparent about it.”

 

It should be noted that Facebook, Twitter were summoned by the panel “safeguarding citizens’ rights and prevention of misuse of social/online news media platforms including special emphasis on women security in the digital space”.