New Delhi: The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology on Tuesday instructed Facebook and Google to comply with the new IT rules. The committee, headed by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, had asked the representatives of the social media giants to appear in person on the issue.
The agenda of the panel meeting was about safeguarding citizens’ rights and how to stop social media misuse. The representatives were conveyed that there were loopholes in their existing data protection and privacy policy mechanism and were asked to put in place stringent safeguards to protect the data privacy and data security of their users.
According to sources, Tharoor had express concerns over the privacy of women in the digital space. He said he has also received complaints from several women MPs in this regard.
Earlier Facebook officials had informed the panel that their company policy prohibited officers from attending meetings as part of its Covid related protocol. Shashi Tharoor, however, declined Facebook’s request to attend the meeting virtually.
In the coming days, YouTube and other social media platforms may also be called before the parliamentary committee.
Representatives of Facebook and Google were called after Twitter officials were deposed.
In their last meeting, Twitter India was told by the parliamentary committee that the ‘Indian laws are supreme and the firm has to abide by them.’
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