Supreme Court Issues Notice to Twitter Over Lack of Content Screening Mechanism

BJP leader files PIL for seeking content screening mechanism on Twitter 

Supreme Court issues notice to Twitter in response to a plea filed by BJP Leader, Vinit Goenka seeking a mechanism to check content and advertisements spreading fake news and instigative messages on the social media platform Twitter on Friday.

Lack of content screening mechanism leading to activities against sovereignty of India 

The learned counsel for the petitioner Adv Ashwini Kumar Dubey contended that social media platforms such as Twitter are being used for activities against the spirit of the union. The plea alleged that the microblogging website promotes messages that are against the law of the land. He also pointed out to a deep correlation between fake news shared by sham Twitter accounts and riot cases.

Twitter did not comply with order to remove controversial hashtag - farmer genocide 

The Secretary of the IT Ministry took up the issue with the Twitter executives of using a hashtag on “farmer genocide” and expressed strong resentment on the way it acted after an emergency order was issued to remove the hashtag and content related to it.  In a blog post, Twitter said that they refused to comply with the orders as it would be an infringement of freedom of speech if they block the accounts of politicians, news media entities and journalists. The Centre did not appreciate this response and termed this blog as “unusual”.