Twitter responds to legal notice by UP police over Loni incident, says available for questioning via video conferencing

Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh) [India], June 21 (ANI): Days after a legal notice was sent to the Managing Director of Twitter India Manish Maheshwari regarding the viral video of the assault on an elderly man in Loni, Ghaziabad Police has received a reply from Twitter officials, stating that they are ready to be available for questioning via video conferencing, according to Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) of Ghaziabad Amit Pathak.

However, the police is not satisfied with the microblogging site’s response and are mulling if it should send a second notice.

Twitter has also asked the Uttar Pradesh Police to make some changes to the notice issued by them, Pathak said.

The Uttar Pradesh Police on Thursday sent a legal notice to the Managing Director of Twitter India Manish Maheshwari regarding the viral video of the assault on an elderly man in Loni. The MD has been asked to record his statement after the microblogging site “let the anti-social messages go viral”.

According to the legal notice, the managing director was asked to come to the Police Station Loni Border and record the statement over the matter within seven days.

Meanwhile, Twitter has lost its status as an intermediary platform in India as it does not comply with new IT rules. According to the sources, Twitter is the only social media platform among the mainstream that has not adhered to the new laws.

Now, instead of being considered just a platform hosting content from various users, Twitter will be held directly editorially responsible for posts published on its platform.

The implication of this development is that if there is any charge against Twitter for alleged unlawful content it would be treated as a publisher – not an intermediary – and be liable for punishment under any law, including IT Act, as also the penal laws of the country, sources stated.

The UP Police on June 16, filed FIR against nine entities, including Twitter India in connection with the Loni incident.

In the FIR, the Police had said, “There is no communal angle to the incident in Loni where a man was thrashed and his beard was chopped off. The following entities — The Wire, Rana Ayyub, Mohammad Zubair, Dr Shama Mohammed, Saba Naqvi, Maskoor Usmani, Salman Nizami — without checking the fact, started giving communal colour to the incident on Twitter and suddenly they started spreading messages to disrupt the peace and bring differences between the religious communities.” (ANI)