Twitter may face legal action on objectionable content

Twitter might face legal action if the popular microblogging site failed to comply with the government's demand to censor objectionable content posted by its users.

The misinformation campaign against people from north east India that spread like wildfire through SMS, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter in past weeks,  seems to have come in handy for the Indian government which is now moving ahead with its initial threat make the social media fall in line.

The Times of India, quoted a senior government official as saying that Twitter had already been told that legal action would follow in the event it failed to cooperate with the Indian government, in its efforts to find the source of and curtail the inflammatory messages, against north-east citizens.

Other websites, including Facebook and YouTube have confirmed to the government that the hate content against the people from north-east had originated from Pakistan, against whom direct action could not be taken. Since both Google (parent of YouTube) and Facebook had offices in India, it would be easier for government sleuths to work with them.

However, India had not received an encouraging response from Twitter, partly due to the the company not having a presence in India. The response from the US company to block 'objectionable content' had reportedly been 'poor'.

The paper quoted a department of telecom (DoT) official, as saying if there was no firm response from Twitter, the Indian government would take whatever steps were necessary to "address the problem."