In Uttar Pradesh’s Bulandshahr district, a first information report (FIR) was filed against Twitter officials.
On the evening of the 28th of June, Monday, a Bajrang Dal office bearer filed the FIR over a distorted map of India, showing Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh as separate countries. Preveen Bhati, the Western U.P., Convenor of the Bajrang Dal in his FIR said, “The world map does not show Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir as parts of India. This is not a coincidence. This act has hurt the sentiments of Indians, including me.”
The FIR has been lodged with the Khurja Nagar police station against the Twitter India Chief Manish Maheshwari and the News Partnership Head of Twitter India Amrita Tripathi. They have been booked under section 505 (2) (Public mischief) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC.) In addition, charges under the Information Technology Act section 74 (publication for fraudulent purpose) have also been invoked against the two Twitter India officials.
According to sources, the distorted map of India was visible on the career section of the Twitter website under the header ‘Tweep Life.’ The issue became a huge matter and triggered a heavy backlash from netizens. Soon, #TwitterBan started to trend. The netizens demanded strict action against Twitter India officials for the same. In addition, the wrong depiction is on Twitter’s website, therefore the case is not that of an ‘intermediary’ but of a publisher which is responsible for content.
After the huge ruckus over the microblogging site, Twitter rectified the error and removed the distorted map. The matter became a serious issue with the involvement of the Government of India (GoI.) A source close to the development, who wished to be anonymous said, the Ministry of Information Technology (IT) is looking into the matter and would soon issue a notice to Twitter India, seeking an explanation.
This is the third time that Twitter has published a map that is different from the Government of India’s official map. In 2020, Twitter’s automatic geo tagging feature was displayed, during a live broadcast from the Hall of Fame war memorial in Leh, the location “Jammu and Kashmir, People’s Republic of China”. Twitter had apologised at the time, but a month later, it showed Leh as a part of Jammu and Kashmir instead of the Union Territory of Ladakh.
Meanwhile, the incident took place at a time when Twitter lost its safe harbour immunity, also known as protective shield in India. The American social media platform lost the safe harbour immunity, granted under Section 79 of the Information Technology (IT) Act, for failing to comply with the new IT rules. With the loss of the protected shield, the social media platform would now be liable for action under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for third party unlawful content.
Stay tuned for further updates.
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