The parliamentary standing committee on Information Technology (IT) has summoned officials of Twitter and Facebook on January 21 in connection with the prevention of misuse of social media.
The panel would discuss measures of safeguarding citizens’ rights and ways to prevent misuse of social media in the light of the evidence presented to it by the committee.
“Evidence of representatives of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and to hear the views of the representatives of Facebook and Twitter on the subject ‘safeguarding citizens’ rights and prevention of misuse of social/online news media platforms, including special emphasis on women security in the digital space,” according to Lok Sabha Secretariat notice.
This would be the agenda of the committee’s next meeting. The sitting will be held from 4 pm onwards on January 21, it said.
The 31-member parliamentary standing committee on IT is headed by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.
The panel had earlier too summoned representatives of these social platforms in the backdrop of allegations that they were showing partiality towards a set of political leaders in reference to ‘hate comments’.
The Congress and the BJP leaders had a verbal clash on the issue when the controversy broke out subsequent to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi quoting a foreign daily that social media gave more space to BJP and RSS leaders. The BJP had then alleged that comments of its leaders were often deleted in social media.