Tag: twitter

-Report by Apurva Jain

Twitter has employed a prime house to take legal action against Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk for terminating a $44 billion takeover deal. Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz LLP, an oversized New York-based house has been hired to sue Musk, according to the Hill. Twitter has filed a lawsuit in Delaware. Musk has hired Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan for his defense.

Musk had proclaimed the termination of a $44 billion Twitter purchase via a letter sent by Musk’s team to Twitter. The reason for the suspension was multiple breaches of the purchase agreement.

In April, Musk entered into a purchase agreement with Twitter at $54.20 per share in a deal worth $44 billion. This transaction was, however, put on hold by Musk in May to permit his team to review the truthfulness of Twitter’s claim that less than five% of accounts on the platform are bots or spam.

Musk had threatened to walk away from the agreement for not being provided with the data on spam and pretend accounts in the month of June. He even alleged that his right to information was being violated and all he demands is the information proving that bots and pretend accounts represent less than 5% of the platform’s active user base.

The Delaware judge has agreed to fast-track the case by giving a date in the month of October much to the disappointment of Elon Musk who had asked for a date in February. Twitter’s lawyer claimed that Musk is obligated to finalize the agreement within two days of all closing conditions which will be met in September. It was further contended that Twitter only needs 4 days to prove that Musk needs to honor the agreement. The shares of Twitter that had fallen in May when the agreement was kept on hold saw a rise after the order of the court. Elon Musk’s advocates stood on the argument that Twitter had breached the agreement and there was no need to fast forward the trial. The court decided that the trial will be held during the fall.

–Report by Avinash Pandey

The Information Technology Act and The Information Technology Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code, 2021 allow the Indian Government to take down certain online activities that they seem might be against National Security or against the general public. The Indian government had already issued numerous warnings to Twitter about the tweets and Twitter accounts that were spreading hatred and to be terminated immediately. Even though twitter had moved its regulation and ability for people to tweet about certain controversial things but the Government had been questioning and making Twitter delete tweets some of which were not even racial or against national security.

Twitter was also challenged in May 2021 when it categorized the tweet of a BJP representative as manipulative in nature, even though Twitter has been under fire for most of the last year. However, they are not the only company that had to change to continue the business in India, WhatsApp with over 540 Million active users in India was also directed to change their existing policies which they later challenged by saying that if they work according to the regulations of the government the data of the users will be easily traceable against the existing laws.

Twitter took to the Karnataka High Court challenging the claims by the Indian Government and the threats that the Government had passed against the chief compliance officer that an arrest warrant will be released against him if Twitter does not comply with the regulations of the Act. Speaking about the topic the Junior Minister of Information Technology said that everyone has the right to go to court and everyone can enjoy Judicial review but it is important to note that the contention is unambiguous to the Indian Legal System. The government wanted Twitter to set up an Indian representative as grievance management for the removal of certain tweets and this was challenged by Twitter saying that it might create bias.

This demand by the government arose because of a video not taken down by Twitter showing communal violence. The situation between the Indian Government and Twitter has been hostile as the newly introduced laws are making Twitter and other social media applications hold on to users’ personal information. Twitter was requested to remove all the posts criticizing the farmers’ bill and any post relating to the farmer’s protest which they had duly done but it sparked a lot of criticism stating that the government is using social media platforms to shut down the voices.

Twitter in the transparency report that they had filed with the suit in the Karnataka High Court displayed that from January 2021 to June 2021 India had been ranked amongst the top 5 countries that had demanded the removal of criticizing tweets. There were 5000 legal demands from countries including Japan, Russia, Turkey, South Korea and India out of which 12% came from India itself. A Twitter spokesperson recently stated that the removal of tweets and
other controversial topics are done in private so the general public does not have a say in this but the people who knew about the issue had already given out their opinion on Twitter itself by stating that the removal of criticism for government policies will impact the free expression for the people online.

The experts have highly criticized the number of legal documents for censorship that the Indian government had to send and they have also stated that the current government is trying to silence the criticism that they get on social media even though the political party in power has refrained and denied all the claims against them. It can be clearly seen from all the documents submitted that only the tweets criticizing the government are being removed. Even though Twitter stated that the laws that are made by the government will infringe the right to freedom of speech and expression of the general public. Not taking any of this into consideration, the central government basically stated that the company should take accountability rather than challenging the Indian technology act and should work on how
the laws have advised them to. Specifically speaking about the current issue they further said that we had given numerous chances for Twitter to reflect upon their steps but almost every time they have fallen short of it.

On 3rd February, climate activist Greta Thunberg had shared a toolkit on Twitter in support of the ongoing farmers’ protests in India. She had uploaded a toolkit earlier, but deleted it and uploaded another one citing that the new one is an updated one by people working on ground with the associated issue. Primarily, there were a lot of concerns with regards to the meaning of a toolkit. According to a social media campaigner, a toolkit is basically a document or booklet created to explain a cause or issue and it also seeks to identify the different approaches to address the issue from the grassroot level. With that toolkit, Greta has asked people to participate and support the Farmers’ Protests in India.

The Toolkit had the following sections:
Protesting Online: Greta had suggested people to support the cause of the farmers through the medium of social media and express their solidarity with the protestors by uploading a photo or video on social media platforms with a hashtag #FarmersProtest or #StandWithFarmers. And also, questions must be asked from the government about the 3 farm bills along with tweeting the handles like @PMOIndia, @nstomar, the heads of the states and other international organizations.
Knowing more about the issue: Greta has attached a list of links of several publications covering the issues and their details which are associated with different institutions as they will help someone who is unaware the issue to get a fair idea about the on- going protests
Participating and connecting with local representatives: Greta has also appealed to people in India to observe and join the on-going farmers’ protests in Delhi and for people who aren’t in India, Embassies and other government offices must be picked up for protests. Further, in order to support the protests, advice and support of the local leaders must be sought for as it will be quite instrumental.
Petitions: Lastly, another essential mention of the toolkit lies in the signing of petitions for the cause from different organisations like United Nations or Change.org.
After the tweets, the Delhi Police lodged an FIR complaint against the creators of the toolkit with the offences of criminal conspiracy (section 120B of the IPC) and promoting enmity between different religious groups (section 153A of the IPC) along with sedition (section 124A of the IPC). The Delhi Police has initiated its investigations and the probe suggests that the document’s link is traced to a pro Khalistani group by the name Poetic Justice Foundation. The Delhi Police officials have further claimed that the unfolding events of the past few days along with the violent protests of 26th January seemed to be a “copycat execution” of the action plan mentioned in the toolkit. Responding to the news, Greta tweeted “I still #StandWithFarmers and support their peaceful protest. No amount of hate, threats or violations of human rights will ever change that,”.
Even the foreign ministry had also reacted to the tweet of Greta Thunberg and had responded that the probe has revealed a lot and they are looking out for what comes next as the center is also going to be investigating this issue.
Interestingly, PM Modi in his speech also made a reference to the toolkit. In the initial toolkit, a point read, “Disrupt yoga and chai image of India in general”. To this, PM Modi addressed in his speech at an election rally in Assam that several foreign powers are trying to tarnish the image of the Indian Tea. In the Sonitpur rally, the PM retorted that the conspirators are attempting to malign the image of the Indian Tea across the world.

Reported by Tanuj Sharma

by SALONI THAWANI

The Apex Court recently issued notice in reference to a plea made by Twitter India who was seeking the quashing of numerous FIRs registered against it for the promoting of a tweet by one Gurpatwant Singh Pannum on “Khalistan“, allegedly.

Twitter claimed that multiple FIRs have been registered against the corporation after Gurpatwant Singh Pannum had tweeted a poll on Twitter on “whether India should recognize Khalistan’2020.”

The plea put forward by Twitter stated that Vinit Goenka, National Co-Convener of the BJP IT cell and several other complainants claimed that Twitter had taken monetary consideration to promote the “Khalistan” tweet, whereas in reality, Twitter had blocked the questionable tweet and furthermore, suspended his account.

Twitter India submitted that in the past several months, Vinit Goenka and his supporters have conducted webinars demanding for Twitter to be announced as a terrorist organisation, for Twitter’s officers to be charged with sedition and moreover, to instigate mass filing of cases against Twitter and its employees.

The claims alleged by Vinit Goenka and his supporters are frivolous, unfounded and actuated by malice, Twitter added, arguing that it had no role in deciding Twitter’s Ad policy and that Twitter does not obtain revenue for the content that is promoted on their platform.

Twitter Communications stated that it has no control whatsoever over the content shared on the website and that the content is monitored by Twitter Inc, which is based in the United States. Twitter also stated that their role is limited to promoting brands, research, development, marketing and soliciting.

Twitter has therefore pleaded for the consolidation of themultiple FIRs filed against them in one place, pointing out the example of Arnab Goswami, in whose case the Supreme Court, under Article 32 of the Constitution had directed the consolidation of such FIRs when there were multiple in number.

Twitter Communications had also claimed that Vinit Goenka had called upon users to file multiple cases against the Twitter with the sole intention of harassing, threatening and intimidating the entity.

Restating that multitude of cases cannot be filed for the same act, the Indian entity stated that all the complaints, filed across eight States in India, are identical in nature and allegations.

Twitter’s plea added that the doctrine of vicarious liability can be implored only in certain exceptional cases.

Twitter Communications had also moved the Gauhati High Court to quash the lead FIR registered in Tinsukia, Assam. Thus, Twitter’s plea stated that they do not pray for quashing of the Assam FIR due to its already being pending before the Gauhati High Court, but seeks quashing of the rest of the identical FIRs.

Twitter has urged the court to combine all the FIRs into one at Tinsukia, in the alternative.

Advocate Sajjan Poovayya appeared as the legal counsel for Twitter assisted by Avocates Manu Kulkarni, Parul Shukla and Saransh Jain. The notice in this matter was issued by a Bench which was headed by the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India, SA Bobde.

In the proceedings which were conducted via video-conferencing, the bench, also comprising Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian, issued notices on the plea to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs and Karnataka, Assam, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Maharashtra , Odisha and the Police Commissioner of Delhi.

The bench has also requested responses from the numerous complainants who have filed the complaints against Twitter, a social media giant.

The bench has also issued the notice to Vinit Goenka, a BJP functionary who claimed that the firm had allegedly taken monetary consideration to promote the questionable tweet.  

Twitter had argued that they have no control whatsoever over the shared content on Twitter’s website and that the content is monitored by the Twitter Inc based in USA.