Digital sovereignty of India won't be compromised under leadership of PM Narendra Modi: RS Prasad

Information and Technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said On Saturday (June 19) that under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi, India cannot compromise its digital sovereignty.

Raising questions about how Twitter acts in India, the IT minister asked in a series of tweets, “Who are the fact-checkers of Twitter? How are these fact-checkers appointed? What is the process of appointing them? Nothing is known about it. From what I know is that their fact-checkers are those who hate PM Modi.”

ट्विटर के जो fact checkers है वह कौन है? ये fact checkers कैसे appoint होते हैं? उनके appoint करने की क्या प्रक्रिया है ? इसके बारे में कुछ भी पता नहीं है। जो मुझे मालूम है कि इनके fact checkers वे है जो @narendramodi जी से नफरत करते हैं। pic.twitter.com/ogb5jQkvFS

— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) June 19, 2021

In an exclusive interview with Zee news CEO Sudhir Chaudhary on Wednesday (June 16), while taking a dig at several foreign social tech platforms, the IT minister said that the era of East India Company is long gone and India will not compromise on its digital sovereignty under the leadership of PM Narendra Modi.

मैं यह कहना चाहता हूं कि प्रधानमंत्री @narendramodi की अगुवाई का भारत अपनी डिजिटल संप्रभुता पर समझौता नहीं करेगा।
ईस्ट इंडिया कंपनी का ज़माना बहुत पहले चला गया है। pic.twitter.com/zfdLulllOP

— Ravi Shankar Prasad (@rsprasad) June 19, 2021

The minister also raised questions “if an Indian citizen is troubled on any social media platform, then where should he go? Will he go to America with his complaint in such a situation? That's why we have asked social media companies to create their own grievance redressal mechanism in India,” he added.

"There are numerous queries arising as to whether Twitter is entitled to safe harbour provision. However, the simple fact of the matter is that Twitter has failed to comply with the Intermediary Guidelines that came into effect from May 26," Prasad pointed out in a series of posts.