The National News Agency ANI reported that the
committee had recommended that the Facebook representative be given the Covid vaccine. In addition to Facebook, the committee will also call representatives
from Google and YouTube. They were told it would be difficult to appear in
person under Facebook's anti - Covid policy. However, the committee decided that
the representative should come in person. Shashi Tharoor said the Parliamentary
Secretariat could arrange for the vaccine if needed.
The committee had on Friday
directed Twitter to abide by the laws of India. It is learned that Twitter has
given vague answers to the question of the members. Earlier, the government had
said that Twitter had lost legal protection in India due to non-implementation
of new IT rules.
The panel asked why Facebook had not appointed a full-time Chief Compliance Officer in India as required by the new IT rules. A Twitter spokesperson later said it was prepared to work with the committee on "safeguarding citizens' rights online in line with our principles of transparency, freedom of expression, and privacy."
Twitter has been facing the government's ire since last month after it branded BJP leader Sambit Patra's tweet, referring to an alleged Congress "toolkit", as "manipulated media". The government asked Twitter to remove the label and the Delhi police served notices on it and traveled to Bengaluru to question the microblogging site's India head, Manish Maheshwari.
Earlier this month, the government said Twitter had lost its "legal shield" as an intermediary as it failed to implement the new rules. This week, the Uttar Pradesh police served a legal notice on the social media giant in a case related to an assault video in Ghaziabad.
