Parliamentary panel summons Twitter officials on June 18

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New Delhi: Days after the Centre issued a notice to Twitter, a parliamentary panel headed by Congress leader Shashi Tharoor has summoned top officials of the microblogging site to depose before it on Friday and give a representation on prevention of misuse of the social media platform.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information and Technology has summoned several social media giants, including Facebook and Twitter, on issues related to misuse of the platforms and protection of citizens’ rights.

According to a notice of the standing committee meeting on June 18, its agenda is to “hear the views of representatives of Twitter followed by evidence of representatives Electronics Technology on safeguarding citizens’ rights and prevention of misuse of social/online news media platforms including special emphasis on women security in the digital space.” The meeting notice was issued by the Lok Sabha Secretariat.

Earlier this month, the central government had issued “one last notice” to Twitter asking it to comply with the new Information Technology rules. Twitter and the Centre are at loggerheads on several issues for the last few months.

Twitter had faced backlash, when it had briefly removed the “blue tick” verification badge from the personal account of Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu and of several senior RSS functionaries including its chief Mohan Bhagwat.