Twitter India FIR Row: SC Issues Notice to Center, 8 States

Twitter India has been holding the spotlight for quite some time. Twitter is one of the oldest and most used social media platforms worldwide and has a wide user-base even in India. The platform has been under supervision since February 2020 when violence broke out between civilians and the authorities during the CAA-NRC protests. There have been multiple rumours about Twitter getting banned in India due to several reasons.

Firstly, there have been multiple cases where false allegations and fake news were spread on the platform. This has led to multiple instances of life and property in India. Secondly, Twitter has been blocking multiple verified accounts of Indian users on its platforms. The accounts were raising awareness about the currently ongoing Farmer's protests in the country. However, accounts and handles that were spreading propaganda and hate speech were left untouched. This behaviour from the management of the company was taken very well by the Indian authorities, and multiple FIRs were filed against Twitter India.

On Thursday, September 9 2021, the Supreme Court of India sought responses from the Centre along with eight states including Karnataka and Assam on a plea of Twitter Communications India Pvt. Ltd. seeking quashing of multiple FIRs lodged against it for allegedly promoting tweets on "Khalistan". The advocate appearing for Twitter India said to the bench that multiple FIRs can not be filed for the same incident. Sajjan Poovayya submitted a plea to the bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde seeking the quashing of the FIRs.

The firm has asked the court to club all the FIRs for conducting a trial in one lower court. This happened when a senior journalist, Arnab Goswami had to appear before the bench with the allegations of spreading hate speech and false news.

What's in store for Twitter India after this? Keep a look at this space for further information.