Committed to remain unbiased, says Twitter

Twitter on Friday said that it is committed to remain unbiased and that its product as well as policies are never based on political ideology.

The microblogging platform claimed that the company "does not take any actions based upon political views or viewpoints", neither does it use political ideology to rank content on its service.

"There has been a lot of discussion about Twitter and political bias in India in recent weeks and the global real time communication platform today set the record straight... Twitter is a platform where voices from across the spectrum can be seen and heard. It is committed to the principles of openness, transparency, and impartiality," Twitter said in a statement.

The company's statement comes against the backdrop of the Parliamentary panel on information technology asking Twitter officials to appear before it on February 11 over the issue of safeguarding citizens' rights on social media platforms.

In its statement on Friday, Twitter argued that the content that appears in users' timelines, or the manner in which the company enforces its policies are impartial and said that it is "committed to remain unbiased with public interest in mind".

"Twitter does not review, prioritise, or enforce its policies on the basis of political ideology. Every Tweet and every account is treated impartially. We apply our policies fairly and judiciously for all. If there are 'false positive' decisions, these are not political statements of intent; they are the basic human error rate of running the fastest, most open conversational tool in history," Twitter Global VP (Public Policy) Colin Crowell said.

Earlier the government had warned social media platforms of strong action if any attempt was made to influence the country's electoral process through undesirable means.

The social media companies including Twitter, Facebook, and Google have also promised to infuse more transparency into political advertisements on their platform.