The government has issued a notice to Twitter to comply with all its past orders by July 4, an official source said on Wednesday.
More than 6,000 URLs, accounts or websites were blocked in 2021, Parliament was informed on Wednesday.
Senior advocate Arvind Datar, appearing for Twitter on Monday online, argued the company was following the rules laid out in the Information Technology Act.
Government-appointed officers, not below the rank of a joint secretary, will determine the nature of the offence and levy a penalty. But government officers are not judicial officers. Are they qualified to define, for instance, what goes against 'friendly relations with foreign states' and what is 'offensive' content?
The advent of artificial intelligence, blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies, and the increasing use of Internet of Things devices throw techno-legal challenges regarding privacy and security. Experts say, any expansion of power to the government to block web-services is detrimental to the interests of users, innovation, and India's larger technology ecosystem. The move to block the mobile apps is likely to have a lasting impact on the data security and privacy framework.
The government on Wednesday informed Parliament that there is no proposal with the Information Technology ministry to set up a regulator for social media.
Cyber law expert Pavan Duggal explains the challenges that the Central Monitoring System and the citizens of the country would face in the time to come.
Twitter has blocked several accounts and tweets after the government asked the microblogging platform to take action against 250 handles and posts for containing 'false and provocative content' related to the ongoing farmers' agitation, according to sources.
'There are already multiple lawsuits against the IT rules.' 'So questions of compliance are like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.'
In what is the first ever verdict in India on the right to freedom of speech on the Internet, the Supreme Court has scrapped Section 66 A of the IT Act. Justices J Chelameswar and Rohinton F Nariman said that 66 A cannot be properly implemented as governments come and go.
The ministry has also issued orders for blocking of two Twitter accounts, two Instagram accounts and one Facebook account involved in spreading 'coordinated anti-India disinformation'.
Reacting to India's ban on the Chinese apps at a foreign ministry briefing, spokesman Zhao Lijian said, "The Indian government has the responsibility to uphold the legitimate and legal rights of the international investors including the Chinese ones."
The ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) in a press release revealed that the Ministry's Secretary, in a virtual interaction with Twitter officials, expressed his deep disappointment to Twitter leadership about the manner in which it has unwillingly, grudgingly and with great delay complied with the substantial parts of the order.
The networking giant said it has taken steps to reduce the visibility of hashtags containing harmful content, which included prohibiting them from trending and appearing as recommended search terms.
The Bombay high court on Friday asked the Union government what was the need to introduce the recently notified Information Technology Rules, 2021 without superseding the existing IT Rules that came into effect in 2009.
According to industry insiders, India has 400 million smartphones and is the world's fastest-growing app market. So the addition or deletion of apps impacts the global valuations of these platforms. "Based on calls given by various local organisations to delete Chinese Apps, there will be an impact," said Blaise Fernandes, director at foreign policy think tank Gateway House. "All of them eventually will go the IPO (initial public offering) route so there would be economic impact also."
Twitter on Wednesday said it has suspended over 500 accounts, and blocked access to several others within India as it partly acceded to a government order to curb spread of misinformation and inflammatory content around farmers' protests.
The banned apps include Baidu, Baidu Express Edition, Tencent Watchlist, FaceU, WeChat Reading and Tencent Weiyun, besides PUBG Mobile and PUBG Mobile Lite, according to an official statement.
CAs not sure if individuals declaring unaccounted money will get immunity from reassessment as these provisions are not covered in the Bill.
Despite the government crackdown on Web sites advertising escort services, the Internet leaves enough wiggle room for debauchery to thrive.
