In a recent monthly compliance report, Twitter revealed that it had banned a record-breaking 1,132,228 accounts in India between April 26 and May 25. The ban, primarily attributed to the company's CEO Elon Musk, aimed to curb the promotion of child sexual exploitation and non-consensual nudity. Additionally, 1,843 accounts were taken down for promoting terrorism on the platform.
Twitter, now under the leadership of Linda Yaccarino as its new CEO, has been actively working to comply with India's new IT Rules of 2021. As part of the rules, major digital and social media platforms with over five million users are required to publish monthly compliance reports. In this reporting period, Twitter received a total of 518 complaints from Indian users through its grievance redressal mechanisms.
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Out of the grievances received, 90 were related to appealing account suspensions. Twitter reviewed these cases and overturned 25 account suspensions based on individual circumstances. The remaining reported accounts, however, remain suspended. Moreover, Twitter received 29 general inquiries about Twitter accounts during the same period.
The majority of complaints from India pertained to abuse and harassment (264), followed by hateful conduct (84), sensitive adult content (67), and defamation (51).
Under Elon Musk's guidance, Twitter has recently been inclined to comply with government requests. According to media reports, the platform approved 83% of global government requests to restrict or block content, including those from India and Turkey.
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Last month, when asked about former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's wild claim that the Indian government had threatened to ban Twitter if it did not block certain accounts, Musk told reporters after he meets with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the US that a company "doesn't have a choice but to obey local governments".
"If we don't obey local government laws, then we will get shut down. So the best we can do is really to hew close to the law in any given country," he said.
Musk stressed that companies must comply with government regulations to avoid being shut down or face legal consequences.
Inputs from IANS
