Parliament Criticized Twitter For Showing Leh As Part Of China, Calling It An Act Of Treason

On Wednesday, Twitter representatives attended a meeting with the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Data Protection Bill for tagging Leh as China’s territory.

As stated by participants, the meeting was about legal problems associated with data protection. The situation got so serious that the Committee said Twitter’s wrongdoing could be regarded as an act of treason.

The lack of transparency, accountability regarding data center location, data transfer, policies, as well as shadow-banning instances, and account takedown were also taken into account.

However, the flashpoint of the meeting was the geo-tagging mistake of Twitter.

The issue was brought before the public’s attention last week when a journalist broadcasted live from a memorial in Leh and found out that the location displayed the People’s Republic of China.

After the incident, the Ministry of Electronics and Information technology wrote to Jack Dorsey – Twitter CEO, expressing the Indian government’s disapproval of the mistake.

According to Meenakshi Lekhi, chair of the committee, Leh being shown as part of China could be considered an act of treason and the punishment for this is up to 7 years in prison.

In answer, Twitter said the matter had been dealt with swiftly and the company promised transparency and openness. It also said protection and data privacy was at the core of the social networking platform.

A member of the committee raised the issue of taking down accounts, which involves both Twitter and Facebook. The member asked who was auditing the two companies, as well as questions over the transfer of information and locations of data centers.

Another member said when companies did business with India, compliance with the country’s law was important. The member also questioned who had the authority to take down certain accounts and not others.

Lekhi said there was no clarity over the banning policy and as such, it had violated Article 19 of the Constitution regarding freedom of expression.

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