Making efforts to comply with new IT rules: Twitter

Social media platform Twitter has said It has expressed its intent to comply with the new IT rules. Twitter spokesperson said that the company is making every effort to comply with the rules and that it has shared an overview of progress with the government. Twitter is learnt to have approached the government seeking more time to comply with the new rules.

"Twitter has been and remains deeply committed to India. We have assured the Government of India that Twitter is making every effort to comply with the new guidelines, and an overview of our progress has been duly shared," the spokesperson said.

"We will continue our constructive dialogue with the Indian government," the spokesperson added.

According to PTI sources, the micro-blogging site has written to Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) seeking more time to comply with the rules due to the pandemic.

The response from Twitter comes after the government, last week, issued a strongly-worded final notice to the company regarding its non-compliance with the new rules. In its notice, the MeitY had said that Twitter's refusal to comply with the rules demonstrated its "lack of commitment and efforts towards providing a safe experience for the people of India on its platform".

The new IT rules for social media companies came into effect last month. The rules mandate large platforms like Facebook and Twitter to undertake greater due diligence and make digital platforms more accountable and responsible for the content hosted by them. The government has said that the new rules are designed to prevent abuse and misuse of platforms, and offer users a robust forum for grievance redressal.