Amid an ongoing tussle with the Centre, Twitter landed in trouble again after Delhi Police Cyber Cell registered a case under the Pocso Act and the IT Act against the micro-blogging site for allowing child pornographic content on the platform.
According to a report by NDTV, the case was lodged following a complaint by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights or NCPCR. In its complaint, the NCPCR said pornographic material involving children was continuously being posted on Twitter.
“Delhi Police Cyber Cell has registered a case under POCSO Act & IT Act against Twitter on the basis of a complaint from NCPCR citing the availability of links/material pertaining to child exploitation. The complaint is against Twitter Inc and Twitter Communication India Pvt Ltd,” the Delhi Police said, as quoted by news agency ANI.
NCPCR Chairperson Priyank Kanoongo took pot shots at the micro-blogging site and said. "Twitter India is not ready to admit that its content, pornographic per se, is unsafe for kids. We also found that they (Twitter India) lied to us about Twitter Inc not linked to them. Two of its directors are salaried employees of Twitter Inc".
"On probe, we also found that Twitter Inc had 99% shares in Twitter India. Case registered under POCSO Act against them and accordingly, we will appeal in the court", he added.
The commission has written two letters to the Cyber Cell and the Delhi Police chief. It has also ordered a senior officer of the Cyber Cell to appear before it on June 29.
Today, Parliamentary panel for IT headed by Congress leader Shashi Tharoor also directed the secretariat to seek in writing from Twitter within two days on what basis Twitter accounts of IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad & Shashi Tharoor were blocked. According to ANI, letter to will be sent today. The panel further said, "If the committee does not get a satisfactory reply from Twitter, then the committee can summon the Twitter official".
On Friday, Union IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad's Twitter account was briefly locked, allegedly over copyright violations. The minister said he was denied access to his account for over an hour over complaints that he violated copyright law by posting clips of himself from television debates.
Earlier this month, case was filed against Twitter in Ghaziabad in connection with tweets on the alleged assault on a Muslim man.
In a series of run-ins with Twitter, the government had also asked the site to remove the “manipulated media” tag from tweets posted by several BJP leaders on an alleged Congress “toolkit”.
The microblogging site has been in head to head with the central government over new IT rules.
