India Urges Twitter to Control the Flow of Abusive Tweets

With its 140-character limit, Twitter is doing more damage to the English language than perhaps all other social networks put together, as people write absurd, broken words in their tweets to stay within the limit. ~ Rakesh Raman

India’s Minister of Women and Child Development (WCD), Maneka Sanjay Gandhi held a meeting Friday with a team of Twitter India led by Mahima Kaul, head of Public Policy, Twitter India.

They discussed the issue of empowering women and children to deal with abuse, harassment, and hateful conduct on social media especially Twitter.

[ Also Read: How India Abuses Children’s Right to Education ]

Secretary, WCD, Leena Nair and senior officials of the WCD Ministry were also present at the meeting held in New Delhi.

The WCD Ministry had advised women and children to send their complaints if they are being abused or harassed on social media platforms. Ever since this message was sent out, the Ministry claims it has been receiving a large number of complaints.

[ Education Policy of India: Why Do You Send Your Child to School? ]

It was decided at the meeting that if any woman or child is facing the following kind of posts on social media platforms, they should report the same to the Ministry:

• Abusive behaviour: Violent threats (direct or indirect)
• Harassment: Inciting or engaging in targeted abuse or harassment
• Hateful conduct: Promotion of violence or direct attack or threatening other people

It was decided that the complaints received by the Ministry, which are of a grave nature, will be reported to Twitter India for necessary action.

During the meeting, the Twitter team also highlighted that they have their own Grievance Redressal Mechanism which the affected persons should continue to use.

It was stated that the Ministry also will be working with the Cybercrime Cells of the police authorities, wherever required in this regard.

Photo courtesy: Press Information Bureau