Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha general election, the Indian parliamentary board on Monday said that “It has asked the Twitter Inc, a U.S. based micro-blogging site to engage more with the election commission of India (ECI) to identify the real-time issues during elections.” The parliamentary board also said that “We have also summoned the senior officials of other social networking sites like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp on March 6 to discuss on the same issue.”
The Parliamentary Commitee on Information Technology will examine the issue:
— Anurag Thakur (@ianuragthakur) February 22, 2019
SAFEGUARDING CITIZENS RIGHTS ON SOCIAL/ONLINE NEWS MEDIA PLATFORMS
The following will present their position:
WHATSAAP
You can tweet/email your views:
comit@sansad.nic.in
After the three-and-half hours of marathon meeting with the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, which was chaired by Anurag Thakur and Colin Crowell Global Vice-president of Public Policy for Twitter with other twitter officials.”
Anurag Thakur said that “We have asked the Twitter officials to engage more with the ECI and address the issues on a ‘real-time’ basis’ and to check that there should not be any international interference during the Lok Sabha elections through the Twitter’s platform.”
“Twitter has replied to most of the questions asked by the panel and would submit the replies to remaining queries in writing in 10 days” Thakur added.
India is the world’s largest democracy and one of our fastest-growing audience markets in the world. We'd like to share an update on our work to protect and enhance the health of the public conversation at this pivotal time. https://t.co/l9XvMTmL85
— Twitter India (@TwitterIndia) February 21, 2019
According to the sources, “The summoned by the Parliamentary board to the Twitter officials was in an apparent reference to the numerous complaints of interference by social media platforms in the US elections.”
“Social media platforms was categorically asked to ensure that the platform should not be used to undermined or to influence the forthcoming general elections by foreign entities.”