July 8 (UPI) — Twitter has agreed to fully comply with India’s new Internet regulations.
The pledge came after the Delhi High Court directed Twitter to give a statement under oath that it intends to comply with India’s new IT rules, according to Bloomberg.
A Twitter lawyer told the court Thursday it has appointed an interim chief compliance officer, and it will name a grievance officer by July 11, and set up an office in India in eight weeks to comply with rules.
The move follows the social media company losing liability protection for content its users in India post after failing to comply with the country’s new IT rules, according to TechCrunch.
Prime Minister Narenda Modi’s government announced the new IT rules in February, which went into effect in late May. Other social media companies, including Facebook, WhatsApp, Google, had already made appointments and generated user grievance reports, Bloomberg and TechCrunch reported.
Conflict over the rules between Twitter and India’s Electronics & Information Technology Minister Ravi Sankar Prasad had stalled similar progress in compliance with the new rules at Twitter until Prasad resigned from the ministry this week, Bloomberg added.
India’s new IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said Thursday India would comply with “the law of the land,” ANI reported.
While the government said the new rules protect the nation’s digital sovereignty, tech companies have said they violate users’ right to privacy and online news companies, such as Bloomberg Media Group, have said the new rules can lead to censorship, Bloomberg reported. India’s top court will consider government’s request to decide the issue Friday.
Late last month India police filed a report against two Twitter India executives over erroneous depiction of the Indian region of Kashmir as a separate country.