New Delhi: Twitter India’s Managing Director (MD), Manish Maheshwari, continues to face trouble as he was accused on Saturday of spreading communal hatred by a complainant in New Delhi. Advocate Aditya Singh Deshwal accused Twitter of spreading hate speech via its platform by sharing obnoxious pictures of Goddess Kali from the handle ‘Atheist Republic’. The complaint names Twitter India’s MD, Public Policy Manager Shagufta Kamran, Atheist Republic’s founder Armin Navabi, and Atheist Republic’s CEO Susana McIntyre.
The complainant claimed that Twitter India’s MD Manish Maheshwari and Public Policy Manager Shagufta Kamran deliberately failed to act on objectionable content after one month, intending to promote communal hatred and disrupt social tranquility in the country. The complainant has sought for the registration of an FIR under Section 153A, 295A, 298, 505, 107, and Section 67,67A read with Section 79(3) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 for spreading communal hatred.
Troubles befell Twitter after some prominent personalities claimed on the platform that an old man in Uttar Pradesh, Abdul Samad Saifi, was not only assaulted with his beard being forcibly cut, but that he was also told to chant Jai Shri Ram slogans. The police criticized them for giving a communal spin to the incident and stated that Twitter and Twitter India did not take any steps to remove the tweets. On June 15, the case was registered at the Loni Border Police Station.
Twitter has been booked under Sections 34 (common intention), 120-B (criminal conspiracy), 153 (provocation with intent to cause riot), 153-A (promoting enmity on grounds of religion), 295-A (deliberate act to outrage religious feelings) and 505 (statements conducing to public mischief) of the IPC. Just days ago, the social media giant lost its ‘safe harbor’ immunity, which means top executives may be criminally liable for content originating from third parties. Meanwhile, Samajwadi Party leader Ummed Pahalwan Idrisi was arrested on June 19 in connection with this case and remanded to 14-day judicial custody.
In an investigation by Republic TV, it was revealed that Ghaziabad Police had been responding to every tweet that propagated the false claim of communal hatred in this case. They did not receive assistance from Twitter, however. None of the posts they replied to were categorized as ‘manipulated media,’ while the fake news vastly outweighed the cops’ multiple clarifications.
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