Union Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw stated on July 5 at an interaction with the media at the Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII) in Ahmedabad that rapid work is being done to make social media accountable not just in India but globally. His comments came after news broke that Twitter has petitioned the Karnataka High Court to have the Government of India’s “take-down” notifications overturned.

He stated, “Social media is a very powerful medium. It has a powerful impact on our lives. How it should be held accountable has become a valid question across the globe. The countries and societies are moving in the direction that it is essential to hold social media accountable. How can it be done? It has to start with self-regulation. Remove the content on our own that can have a harmful impact on society. Then comes the industry regulation, followed by the government regulation. An ecosystem, thought process that social media should be held accountable, is spreading in our country as well as globally.”

While speaking to ANI, he declared, “Any corporation, in any field, should adhere by Indian law. Everyone has a duty to obey the laws that have been passed by the legislature.

He added that content producers, such as news websites, should receive a portion of the money that social media businesses make from their content.

In an effort to challenge some of the Indian government’s takedown orders recently, Twitter has sued the Government of India, further escalating the delicate situation between Washington and New Delhi. Twitter argues that New Delhi overstepped its bounds by requesting the deletion of numerous messages from its platform in its complaint, which was delivered to the Karnataka High Court on Tuesday. After a challenging year and a half in India, a large overseas market for the corporation, the case was filed. Hundreds of accounts and tweets were requested to be deleted at that location.

According to critics, many of these accounts and tweets were blocked because they opposed the policies of the Indian government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Twitter has attempted to counter many of the criticisms while only partially adhering to requests.

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