Women's commission in Delhi summons Twitter, Delhi Police over child pornography

Representational image.

The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) on September 20 summoned Twitter India's Public Policy Head while expressing shock on coming across alleged child pornography and rape videos being circulated on the platform.

Swati Maliwal, chairperson for DCW said, "Videos are being circulated where children and women are being raped. And these tweets are being retweeted and they have been on the platform for months."

Maliwal, at a press conference, showed 'screenshots' of these alleged child pornography posts and claimed that a 'racket' was being run on Twitter where such videos were being uploaded with the message that one can buy them for as low as Rs 20.

"This is why we have summoned Twitter India's policy head -- to explain to us, why such illegal and criminal videos have been on Twitter for so long? Why were they not deleted?" she asked.

Moneycontrol has reached out to Twitter with queries in this regard, and this report will be updated when a response is received.

This is the latest run-in Twitter has had with Indian authorities. Currently, a legal battle is ongoing at the Karnataka High Court, where the social media platform is seeking relief from a few blocking orders issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

Maliwal also summoned Delhi Police's deputy commissioner of policy in the Cyber Cell division and sought FIRs to be registered regarding the matter.

"I want to know whether the police have taken action on this. I want Delhi Police to explain to me the steps they would take to ensure that such videos are not hosted on social media platforms like Twitter," Maliwal said.