X Policy Head For India & South Asia Samiran Gupta Steps Down Amid Mounting India Tussle

The head of policy of the Elon Musk-led social media platform X (formerly Twitter) in India and South Asia, Samiran Gupta, has resigned from his post, according to his LinkedIn page.

The top-level exit in India has come as the social media major is embroiled in a legal tussle with the Indian government over content removal.

Reuters first reported Gupta’s exit from X.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Gupta was responsible for ‘key content-related policy issues’ and ‘defending Twitter’s position with new policy developments and support in-country sales [of the] organisation’.

He was also the head of X’s global government affairs for India and South Asia.

Gupta was the senior-most of the 15 X employees working in India across functions like compliance and engineering. He was the only executive engaging with the government and political parties, according to sources cited by Reuters.

Having joined X in February 2022, the outgoing India policy head’s tenure at the social networking company ended this month. 

X, which was labelled a ‘habitual non-compliant platform’ by the Indian government earlier this month, will see its interactions intensifying with the Indian government over the coming months.

The platform is also currently embroiled in a legal battle with the Indian government, as it appeals against a court ruling that it had failed to comply with government orders to remove certain content. Earlier this month, the Centre told the Karnataka High Court that the platform did not adhere to its content takedown orders for years, thereby undermining the government’s role.

Meanwhile, earlier in the day, X informed the Karnataka HC that it deposited INR 25 Lakh in compliance with the previous order issued by a single bench of the court. In August, the HC ordered the platform to deposit half of the INR 50 Lakh penalty imposed on the company in June this year by August 14. 

In July last year, Twitter filed a petition in the Karnataka HC seeking to dismiss content takedown orders issued by MeitY under Section 69A of the IT Act. Eleven months later, a single-judge bench of the HC ruled in favour of the government and imposed a penalty of INR 50 Lakh on the social media platform. Following this, the company approached a divisional bench against the order.

According to the monthly compliance report published by the platform for the month ended August 25, 2023, X suspended nearly 1.3 Mn accounts proactively for suspicious activity, including child abuse and terrorism.

Further, the platform blocked 2,827 URLs for various illegal activities, including privacy infringement, abuse, harassment and hateful conduct.