Twitter Chief Eexecutive Officer Jack Dorsey will not appear before the Parliamentary panel on IT on February 25, and instead the company is sending its Head of Public Policy Colin Crowell. The Parliamentary panel on Information Technology had summoned Twitter head Jack Dorsey to appear before it on February 25, and had refused to meet “junior officials” of the microblogging site during its meeting on February 11.
The meeting had been called against the backdrop of growing concerns about safeguarding citizens’ data privacy and the possibility of social media platforms being used to interfere in the upcoming elections. After this meeting, the panel is expected to summon top executives of Facebook and WhatsApp on March 5 to discuss similar issues.
Sources in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), however, said efforts were still on to have Dorsey attend the meeting. On February 11, the committee had refused to meet junior officials from Twitter’s India office who were present at the meeting venue. During the meeting with Twitter, the panel wants to examine issues such as data privacy. It is also seeking to better understand the company’s business structure, including whether it is a technology company or a media house.
The panel passed an unanimous resolution that the micro-blogging website’s CEO should make himself available to show the company’s seriousness in safeguarding rights of Indian citizens online, they added.
As per the resolution, the panel would hear only the Twitter CEO or senior member of its global team “who has decision making authority regarding Twitter’s operations in India,” one of the sources had said, according to news agency Press Trust of India.
Even as it faces heat over allegations of political bias in the country, Twitter has maintained that it is committed to remain unbiased and that its product as well as policies is never based on political ideology.
The Government has been taking a strong view of misuse of social media platforms and is also proposing to amend IT rules to curb fake news and increase accountability of such apps.
Over the last few weeks, Facebook, Twitter and Google have promised to infuse more transparency into political advertisements on their platform, and announced a slew of measures as part of their election integrity efforts.
On Thursday, Twitter said it has formed an internal, cross-functional group to lead “electoral integrity work” in India that will proactively support partner escalations, and identify potential threats from malicious actors.