Twitter And The Centre Must Both Comply With Indian Law

Context: The debates regarding IT Rules 2021 should be viewed in a broader framework upholding the call for prudence from Twitter and Government of India

Background: The IT Rules has been defined by two parallel narratives:

• Focus on Indian sovereignty and the arrogance of a foreign company that ignores our laws.
• A nefarious attempt to subdue dissent and chill free speech.

Four points to navigate the debate surrounding IT Rules 2021

1. No legal option to ignore a law: If Twitter doesn’t like the regulation, it cannot just ignore the law and should appeal to the Supreme Court if it believes that rights are impeded.
2. Entities operating in India are entitled to the protection of the law: Twitter, as a private company, is entitled to frame and implement policies and rules for those who wish to use its platform, as long as these rules and regulations don’t violate the law.
   • E.g. Twitter’s policies dealing with the labelling of tweets, approving blue ticks and excluding accounts of persons who egregiously violate its terms.
   • On the contrary, if any of these policies are wrongly applied, the person has the right to complain and have that grievance redressed.
3. Prudence in handling case of partial compliance: Insisting on full compliance immediately at the cost of losing ‘intermediary’ status comes at a huge cost.
   • Losing foreign investor confidence, it will be viewed as another episode of ‘retrospective taxation’ and also impacts India-US ties.
   • Reduce our rankings on global democratic and freedom indices: As Twitter is in the business of free speech.
   • Hurt citizens who find it useful to obtain medical supplies and will damage political parties that use ‘cyber cells’ for mass communication.
   • A prudent choice would be to have no coercive action but dialogue to arrive at some via-media solution—E.g. US Government response to de-platforming Donald Trump.
4. While Twitter must comply with Indian laws, the government must comply with Indian Constitution.
   • Twitter violated Indian sovereignty by refusing to follow the dictates of the government on banning the account of Caravan magazine, on the other hand Twitter defended constitutionally-guaranteed free speech in India by refusing to muzzle it.