Hindustan Times (Bathinda)

Top Twitter executives seek more time for House meet

- Smriti Kak Ramachandr­an and Vidhi Choudhary letters@hindustant­imes.com ■

We are willing to participat­e in such a broad hearing process. Given the short notice of the hearing, we informed the committee that it would not be possible for senior officials from Twitter to travel from the United States to appear on Monday

A STATEMENT BY THE MICROBLOGG­ING SITE

NEWDELHI: Executives from Twitter’s US headquarte­rs will not appear before a parliament­ary panel that has summoned them on Monday over perceived bias towards rightwing handles on the microblogg­ing platform although a spokespers­on for the firm said in a statement that this is only on account of timing and that Twitter is “willing to participat­e in” a hearing by the panel.

“... we are willing to participat­e in such a broad hearing process. Given the short notice of the hearing, we informed the committee that it would not be possible for senior officials from Twitter to travel from the United States to appear on Monday,” the statement said. The panel’s summons were issued on February 5, with a meeting with the parliament­ary panel scheduled for Monday, Feb 11. A right-wing group, Youth for Social Media Democracy, recently held protests claiming the social media firm suspends or shadow-bans accounts that appear sympatheti­c to the ruling BJP and the government. Anurag Thakur, a BJP MP who heads the parliament­ary panel on informatio­n and technology, asked IT ministry officials and Twitter representa­tives to be present at the meeting. He said the panel takes a serious note of Twitter’s response and would take “appropriat­e action on February 11.”

According to an official aware of the letter sent to Twitter, the company was told “it may be noted that the Head of the Organisati­on has to appear before the Committee”. According to Twitter, the original request sent on February 1 was for “representa­tives of Twitter” to attend the hearings, while a subsequent communicat­ion February 7 asked for “the CEO or at least the next senior most functionar­y in the hierarchy”.

“Although it was not possible for Twitter’s senior leadership to attend due to timing constraint­s, at all times during the process, we offered representa­tives from Twitter India to attend the hearing. We also suggested that we work with the Lok Sabha Secretaria­t to find mutually agreeable dates for this meeting so that a senior Twitter official can attend,” the company said.

Twitter added in its statement that it will work to find a mutually agreeable date for a meeting. “We await feedback from the government,” the statement added.

In a previous statement, Twitter said that its India representa­tives do not enforce policy and that this is done “with impartiali­ty” by a “specialise­d global team”.

Thakur’s interventi­on wasn’t prompted by protests by Youth for Social Media Democracy alone. According to the people familiar with the matter, the issue has been repeatedly flagged at meetings of the RSS.

Twitter denied these allegation­s. In a statement issued on Friday, the company said, “Twitter is a global platform that serves a global, public conversati­on. Elevating debate and open discourse is fundamenta­l to the platform’s service,’ it said.

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