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Viral video not removed: Police appoint India's Twitter boss

2021-06-22T11:08:52.111Z


The Indian government has long tried to monitor expressions of opinion on the Internet more closely. Now the police are accusing Twitter of fueling violence between Hindus and Muslims.


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Twitter app on a smartphone

Photo: Mike Blake / REUTERS

Because of a video shared on Twitter, the police in Ghaziabad, India called in the local Twitter boss.

She accuses the company of inciting violence between the religions, as a police spokesman for the German Press Agency said on Friday.

The video shows how a man is beaten and his beard is cut off. The video was shared by people on Twitter who implied that it was violence by Hindus against a Muslim, the police said. After the video had spread rapidly, the authorities said that, according to initial findings, there was no religious background. Nevertheless, Twitter did not remove the misleading content. On Thursday, the police asked the Twitter boss in India to report to a police station within seven days and explain the company's position. In response to a dpa request, Twitter initially did not issue a statement.

In an Indian media report, however, it is said that the victim was on the way to a mosque and was beaten because he did not want to shout the Hindu greeting "Jai Shri Ram" - which would confirm a religious background.

Representatives of US companies are said to be personally liable for the content

This week India's Justice Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad accused Twitter of failing to abide by new laws and of acting arbitrarily in the fight against false reports.

According to the rules that recently came into force, services such as Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp have to name an employee in India whom authorities can contact if they want content removed.

This person should be personally liable for published content.

The companies would also have to be able to identify the original sender of a content.

If companies do not adhere to this, according to Indian media reports, they could themselves be held responsible for the content of their users and, if necessary, be prosecuted.

The Indian government has long tried to monitor expressions of opinion on the Internet more closely.

pbe / dpa

Source: spiegel

All tech articles on 2021-06-22

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