Section 66A scrapped: Twitter CEO cheers move
Twitter CEO Dick Costolo on Tuesday described as a vote for public voice the Supreme Court verdict striking down the controversial Section 66A of the information technology act that allowed police to swoop on social network posts.
Twitter CEO Dick Costolo on Tuesday described as a vote for public voice the Supreme Court verdict striking down the controversial Section 66A of the information technology act that allowed police to swoop on social network posts.
“It is obviously very exciting for people here,” said Costolo, who is on his first India visit. The court described as unconstitutional the provision that provided for the arrest of those posting “offensive” content the Net, especially social-networking sites. “We have as a company a reputation for respecting users’ voices,” the 51-year-old said.
Similar views were shared by Twitter India. “We have a history of defending our users’ voices. We welcome SC’s action affirming the rights of users to freely express themselves,” a tweet said.
Though it does not give country-wise break-up, the microblogging site had an estimated 33 million users in India in 2014. Across the world 284 million people are on Twitter.
Asked whether Twitter would take down any posts in the light of the verdict, Costolo, who was speaking to reporters after a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, said the company followed a general principle of disclosing such acts in its “annual transparency report”, adding, “I expect that to continue.” In general, Twitter was concerned about abuse but believed that the community as a whole was better a policing it than itself.