Parliamentary panel refuses to meet Indian Twitter officials, gives Jack Dorsey 15 days deadline to depose
Twitter sent a team of members today, but Parliamentary panel is looking to interview its global CEO.
Days after giving excuse of short notice to evade CEO Jack and other top officials deposing before Parliamentary committee, on Monday, Twitter India officials came to meet the panel. It was lead by Twitter India chief Mahima Kaul. However, the Parliamentary panel which is looking at the alleged bias shown by the social media platform refused to meet any of the Indian officials. The panel lead by BJP MP Anurag Thakur is looking to interview the Twitter bigshots including the top boss Jack Dorsey, and grill them about different issues raised by Indian Twitter users. So a 15 day deadline has been given and Jack and other officials have to appear before the panel before 25 th February. The decision to not meet Indian Twitter officials was taken unanimously, according to reports.
The parliamentary committee meeting was scheduled for February 7, but was later postponed to February 11 to allow the Twitter CEO and senior officials more time to make themselves available. Twitter cited "short notice of the hearing" as the reason, despite being given 10 days to travel.
The letter sent to Twitter by the Parliamentary IT Committee on February 1 clearly stated that "it may be noted that the Head of the Organisation has to appear before the Committee". It further stated that "He/She may be accompanied by another representative." The Parliamentary IT Committee received a letter on February 7 from Vijaya Gadde, Twitter's global lead for legal, policy, trust and safety, stating, "No one who engages publicly for Twitter India makes enforcement decisions with respect to our rules for content or accounts in India." Deputing a junior employee to represent Twitter at the Indian Parliamentary IT Committee has not gone down well with Indian lawmakers especially since they have no decision making authority, the letter from Gadde said.