Twitter loses legal shield in India for 3rd-party content

NEW DELHI: Twitter has lost the coveted “safe harbour” immunity in India over its failure to appoint statutory officers on the company’s role in line with the new IT rules, and its top executives, including the country managing director, could now face police questioning and criminal liability under IPC over ‘unlawful’ and ‘inflammatory’ content posted on the platform by any user.

With this, Twitter becomes the only American platform to have lost the protective shield – granted under Section 79 of the IT Act, even though others such as Google, YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram remain protected, official sources said.