Parl panel summons Twitter CEO to appear on Feb 25

The parliamentary panel on Information Technology has summoned the head of Twitter to appear before it on February 25, the committee’s chairman Anurag Thakur said on Monday.

Taking serious note of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey not appearing before it on Monday, Thakur said the Twitter head and other representatives have been “summoned” to appear before the panel on February 25. Though representatives from Twitter’s India office reached the meeting venue here, the panel did not call them in for deliberations, sources said.

The committee had decided to call Twitter officials against the backdrop of growing concerns about safeguarding citizens’ data privacy and a possibility that social media could be used to interfere in elections.

On Saturday, Twitter in a statement had cited “short notice of the hearing” for its CEO Dorsey not being able to attend the Monday meeting.

The panel was scheduled to hear the views of the representatives of the Ministry of Electronics and IT and Twitter on ‘safeguarding citizens rights on social/ online news media platforms’. Senior officials from the IT ministry were present at the meeting here on Monday.

Sources said the panel is also likely to summon the heads of social media platforms like Facebook before it on February 26, but a final call is yet to be taken.

With the allegations of political bias in the country, Twitter last week said it was committed to remaining unbiased and that its product as well as policies were never based on political ideology.

The government has been taking a strong view of misuse of social media platforms and is also proposing to amend IT rules to curb fake news and increase accountability of such apps.