The Central government on Saturday gave Twitter one last chance to “immediately” comply with the new IT rules and warned that non-compliance with the norms will lead to the platform losing exemption from liability under the IT Act.

In a notice sent to the microblogging platform, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) said that its refusal to comply with the rules demonstrates “lack of commitment and efforts towards providing a safe experience for the people of India on its platform”.

“Despite being operational in India for more than a decade, it is beyond belief that Twitter Inc has doggedly refused to create mechanism that will enable the people of India to resolve their issues on the platform in a timely and transparent manner and through fair processes, by India based, clearly identified resources,” MeitY said.

When contacted, a spokesperson for Twitter, declined to comment on the issue.

The provisions for “significant social media intermediaries” came into effect from May 26. The Ministry noted that the platform has refused to comply with these provisions so far.

“ Needless to state, such non-compliance will lead to unintended consequences including Twitter losing exemption from liability as intermediary available under Section 79 of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000.,”it added.

“However, as a gesture of goodwill, Twitter Inc is hereby given one last notice to immediately comply with the rules, failing which the exemption from liability available...shall stand withdrawn and Twitter shall be liable for consequences as per the IT Act and other penal laws of India,” MeitY added.

The Ministry pointed out that till date, Twitter has not informed about the details of the Chief Compliance Officer as required by the new IT rules. The notice added that the Resident Grievance Officer and Nodal Contact Person nominated by the platform are not an employee of Twitter Inc in India, as prescribed by the rules.

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