Government responds to Twitter complaint, says requests are "proportional"
Earlier this month, Twitter had complained that the government was overreaching its requests, and that some of them were not legally permissible under the IT Act.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has said that its requests for content blocking and takedowns on Twitter are proportional to the global business Twitter does in India, in an official review.
Reported by the Economic Times, the review states that MeitY asked for 17,338 takedowns in the last decade, and that represents only 7 percent of the company's takedown requests globally. According to the report, this is a proportional request since India makes up 7 percent of the company's global user base.
“India's 17,338 Legal demands between 2012 and 2021 account for 7 percent of the global legal demands (amounting) to 225,076 worldwide,” the report said. “India is 7 percent of Twitter's global user base and so is the volume of removal requests.”
Earlier this month, Twitter made headlines for challenging some of the takedown and blocking orders from MeitY, stating that the IT Act does not provide the provision for up to 39 particular orders going back to February 2021.
The new report by MeitY compares the proportion of India's takedown orders to some other nations. "Japan, which accounts for 18 percent of Twitter’s global user base, has issued 32 percent of global legal demands, while South Korea has issued 5 percent of removal requests with just a 2 percent user base,” the report said.
Edited by Megha Reddy