Parliament’s Standing Committee on Information Technology, headed by Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, is scheduled to hold a meeting on Tuesday to hear the views of Facebook India and Google India on safeguarding citizens’ rights and prevention of misuse of social media and online news media platforms. The Committee has issued summons to Facebook India and Google India asking them to send their representatives to appear before it on Tuesday to hear their views on safeguarding citizens’ rights and prevention of misuse of social online news media platforms.
The meeting will be held at 4 p.m. onwards at Main Committee Room, Parliament House Annexe in presence of committee members, officials of Ministry of I&T and the representatives of Facebook and Google. Senior Congress leader and Lok Sabha member Shashi Tharoor is the Chairman of the committee, which includes 31 members — 21 from the Lok Sabha and 10 from Rajya Sabha. Last week, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said he was denied access to his Twitter account for almost an hour. Congress’s Shashi Tharoor said he too faced the same problem over a copyright issue. Tharoor also said that he would be seeking an explanation from Twitter India over the brief locking of his and Ravi Shankar Prasad’s account. Media reports citing sources said the committee will hear from the companies about protecting citizens’ rights and preventing the misuse of social or online news media platforms, with a special focus on women’s security in the digital domain.
This comes 10 days after the officials of Twitter appeared before the panel to discuss India’s new IT rules and how to stop the misuse of the platform. Earlier on June 18, the Committee had called Twitter to appear before the panel to give representation on how to prevent misuse of social media and online news. Twitter and the Centre are at loggerheads over the new IT rules. While most social media platforms have complied with the rules, Twitter is yet to do so.
