Delhi Hopes Twitter Will Comply With Indian Laws After Musk's Takeover

Twitter and the Indian government have been at loggerheads over various issues for the last two years. Delhi recently ordered the blocking of 39 Twitter handles, citing national security concerns. However, the microblogging site challenged the order and refused to comply with the Indian government's efforts to blanket ban users’ accounts.

A day after Elon Musk took over Twitter, Indian Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar told foreign media that Delhi expects the company to comply with the country’s rules from now own.

“Our rules and laws for intermediaries remain the same regardless of who owns the platforms,” said Chandrasekhar, adding that “the expectation of compliance with Indian laws and rules remains.”

The minister also said that India's new Information and Technology (IT) rules would be out in a day or two.

The Indian government and Twitter have been fighting a long battle over compliance with India’s 2021 IT law.

The law requires any social media company with more than five million users to publish a monthly report regarding the handling of complaints from users in the country, including action taken in response to them, as well as the number of URLs or links on which Twitter has taken action as a result of proactive monitoring efforts.

In July, Twitter moved to the Karnataka High Court, saying content blocking orders from the IT Ministry do not pass "the test of the grounds provided under Section 69A of the IT Act”.

The government also necessitates recording reasons for the order, which must be communicated to the users, Twitter Inc stressed. The matter is still being argued in court.

The court stressed that the fact that most of the blocked users were posting about supporting Khalistani separatists, as well as spreading misinformation about the farmers' protest, the COVID-19 pandemic, and much more.