Will New Content Moderation Council Help Twitter Better Deal With Indian Regulations?

Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk on Friday said that the social media platform will form a “content moderation council” and any major content decisions or account reinstatements on the platform will only happen after such a body has been convened.

Later, Musk also clarified that no changes have been made to Twitter’s content moderation policies yet.

This comes a day after Musk completed the acquisition of Twitter in a $44 Bn deal and let go of some top executives including CEO Parag Agrawal. Twitter legal executive Vijaya Gadde, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal and General Counsel Sean Edgett were also ousted after the acquisition.

“Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints. No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes,” Musk tweeted.

However, he did not divulge any details on how the content moderation policy will work. 

The announcement of the formation of the new council has also raised expectations in India where the platform has been under intense scrutiny for alleged violations of laws and is involved in legal battles with the government.

Twitter’s Troubles In India

India is an important market for Twitter as it has one of the largest user bases in the world. However, from its battle with the government to its decision to permanently suspend some popular accounts, the platform has constantly been in the news in the country for the wrong reasons.

While the government brought IT Rules, 2021 to address user complaints about social media platforms, it notified amendments to the IT Rules on Friday.

Commenting on the amendments, Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that the government aims to make the internet open and safe, and the internet cannot be a party to deliberate misinformation. 

Amid rising complaints from users about their accounts being held back or suspended on the platform, the amendments will lead to formation of grievance panel/s to hear complaints from users about content moderation decisions of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.

It must be noted that in the past, Twitter has been dragged to the courts by some Indian users for suspending or locking their accounts.

Besides, the Indian government and Twitter have also been involved in a legal tussle over content-related issues. In July this year, the company took the government to court seeking to overturn some of its content takedown orders.

Commenting on the change in ownership of Twitter, Chandrasekhar said that India’s expectations remain unchanged on the platform’s compliance with the IT rules. “Our rules and laws for intermediaries remain the same regardless of who owns the platforms,” he said. 

The IT Rules, 2021 mandate all significant social media intermediaries to release monthly compliance reports. As per Twitter’s compliance report, it received 1,088 complaints from individual users in India between July 26 and August 25 via its grievance redressal mechanisms. Out of the 1,088 complaints, the tech giant took action against 41 URLs.

With social media platforms becoming an ideological battleground, Twitter has also been facing issues regarding political content across the world, including India. While the platform has a policy of blocking or suspending accounts for making controversial posts and repeated violations of its guidelines, new owner Musk has been vocal about lowering moderation and allowing voices to be heard more freely.

Twitter has also been under fire for suspending popular accounts like that of former US President Donald Trump. In India, its decision to permanently block the account of actor Kangana Ranaut in May 2021 due to a series of controversial tweets against Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee raised a lot of eyebrows.

In early 2021, Twitter also got into a battle with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology over the government’s demand to take down some of the accounts related to farmer protests. While the platform complied with some of the requests, it refused to take action against accounts of journalists, activists or politicians.

With it being involved in multiple controversies in the country, it remains to be seen if the formation of the content moderation council helps Twitter better navigate the regulations in the country and keep all the stakeholders happy.