- Sunday, February 23, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
IT seems there is no respite yet for social media giant Twitter in India. Already having found itself under the scanner of the government of India and the country’s police authorities over allegations like non-compliance with India’s new information technology laws or circulation of a controversial video of assault of an elderly Muslim man in Uttar Pradesh or displaying a wrong map of India, the US company has now faced a new challenge.
Delhi Police Cyber Cell has registered a first information report under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and Information Technology (IT) Act against the social media platform on the basis of a complaint from the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) over allowing access to child sexual abuse material on its site.
The case was registered after the NCPCR lodged a complaint on May 29.
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Sources in the Delhi Police said the cyber crime cell was acting on the complaint which was against Twitter Inc and Twitter Communication India Private Limited.
The complaint was filed by Priyanka Kanoongo, the chairperson of the child rights body.
“Such material was also found to be available on Twitter where many links are within the reach of users, and they can obtain such material through different handles. These Twitter handles also provided links to WhatsApp groups through which this material can be obtained. It was also observed by the Commission that the toolkit for deep and dark web was also available on Twitter, thus giving access to all, including children, to obtain such material,” the complaint read. It also said the social media platform allows children aged 13 and above to use the site and access its content, thus violating the POSCO Act.
“It was observed by the Commission (NCPCR) that… Twitter does not report such cases to the authorities in India, which is mandatory as per… POCSO Act. It was seen that they report the cases to… a US-based agency. This is a violation of the POCSO Act, which applies to the whole of India,” the complaint added.
The complaint also said that when the commission approached Twitter Communication India Private Limited, it told them that it was different from Twitter Inc and could not control any data pertaining to any of the users. It also said that Twitter India has no role to play in the operation and control of the platform and was not able to provide details to the commission as sought.
‘Twitter has zero-tolerance policy for child sexual abuse’
A Twitter India spokesperson said it followed a zero-tolerance policy for child sexual exploitation and had a proactive approach to deal with sexual exploitation of minors on its service. “We will continue to invest in proactive detection and removal of content that violates the Twitter Rules and work with law enforcement and NGO partners in India to tackle the issue,” the official said.
