Comment | Twitter’s way out in India: #localleader, #talks, #engagement

Twitter

Sounak Mitra

A parliamentary panel has summoned Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey and his team on February 25. It wants Dorsey to spell out the company’s views on ‘safeguarding citizens’ rights on social media or online news platforms and the possibility that the platform could be used to interfere in elections. However, there’s more to it. Over a year or so, several Right-wing sympathisers have complained about losing ‘followers’ overnight, and they’ve blamed Twitter for censoring content and influencing traffic.

For Twitter, this is not an exclusive challenge in India.

The micro-blogging site has undertaken a global initiative and locked users who failed to follow the company’s global standards. According to a Washington Post reporter’s tweet, immediately after Twitter made the change, US President Donal Trump lost 100,000 followers, and his immediate predecessor Barack Obama lost 400,000.

Twitter does not develop country- or political party-specific standards or policies. Thus, India is no different.

The parliamentary panel, led by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Anurag Thakur, has also asked the ministry of information & technology to access Twitter’s public standing – to check whether it is a media entity or a social platform. If it is registered as a media entity, Twitter is going to face a bitter future. India’s regulations are still pretty stringent for foreign media entities. But, if Twitter is a social platform, it is bound by laws that do not allow such (social) platforms to ‘edit’ what has been posted by users. In short — no censoring.

Either way, Twitter will hit a wall.

Now, how important is India for Twitter? Twitter has around 30.4 million (2018) users in India, or about a tenth of its global user base of 321 million. Besides, Dorsey visited India in November and met political leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress President Rahul Gandhi, to better understand the opportunities that the micro-blogging site has in India, especially how it can be more useful as a platform during the upcoming general elections. What followed was the #PowerOf18 campaign to encourage young Indians to participate in civic issues and public debates. Yet, Twitter remained a hotbed for users who spread fake news.

Will Dorsey’s appearance before the parliamentary panel on February 25? Theirs is no straight answer. The reality is, Twitter needs to open a dialogue with the Indian authorities

So far Twitter has been operating in India without a proper and capable leadership team. Its former India country director Taranjeet Singh resigned in September, 16 months after taking up the job. Balaji Krish, who was heading revenue and operations globally for Twitter, is now acting as the interim country head (India). The only senior person who is here is Mahima Kaul, public policy head for Twitter in India. However, Kaul does not have any legal authority to represent Twitter before a parliamentary panel. To add to that, Kaul can only give suggestions to Twitter’s policy and standards formation team but has no say in deciding the final framework.

Twitter needs to resolve that first. It needs to appoint an India country head, someone who has legal authority and who will have regular and meaningful conversations with the government.

In any case, a parliamentary panel summoning the chief of a tech company isn’t something unheard of. Last year, the US congressional panel grilled Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg following reports that Facebook shared users’ data with advertisers. If Zuckerberg can be summoned by US congressional panel there is no reason why Dorsey can’t be by Indian parliamentary panel.