A Twitter spokesperson said, “Twitter has a zero tolerance policy towards child sexual exploitation (CSE) and we have a proactive approach in combating sexual exploitation of minors on our service.”
NEW DELHI – The Delhi Police’s Cyber Cell on Tuesday registered an FIR against Twitter Inc and Twitter Communication India Private Ltd under several serious sections of the POCSO Act on a complaint of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR).
A Delhi Police spokesperson said that acting on a complaint received from NCPCR regarding availability of child sexual abuse and child pornographic material on Twitter, an FIR under relevant sections of IPC, IT Act and POCSO Act has been registered by Cyber Crime Unit, and investigation has been taken up.
Earlier on June 25, the NCPCR had written a reminder letter to Delhi Police demanding a report on the action taken by them against Twitter over providing false information during an investigation and not cooperating.
The NCPCR also sought a report from the police within three days.
The reminder from NCPCR came after the Delhi Police failed to provide a report after FIR was registered by the child commission against Twitter.
Earlier, NCPCR had sought a response from Twitter regarding certain links related to child pornography and other matters concerning child welfare on social media which Twitter refused.
“After conducting an inquiry and finding child pornographic material (CSAM) on the microblogging site, the NCPCR directed Delhi Police to book Twitter India under section 11/15/19 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, section 199/292 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and any other relevant sections of IT Act on May 29,” the complaint read.
A Twitter spokesperson said, “Twitter has a zero tolerance policy towards child sexual exploitation (CSE) and we have a proactive approach in combating sexual exploitation of minors on our service.”
“We have been at the forefront of responding to the evolving challenge of preventing the exploitation of children on the Internet and will continue to aggressively fight online child sexual abuse, as well as invest in the technology and tools that are essential to stay ahead of this issue.
We will continue to invest in proactive detection and removal of content that violates the Twitter Rules and work with law enforcement and NGO partners in India to tackle the issue”, Twitter said in a statement.
Twitter uses PhotoDNA technology, our own proprietary tools, and other systems to detect behavioral signals and remove media; which also, in many cases, helps to remove new accounts linked to this type of content before they have even sent their first Tweet.
All viewing, sharing, or linking to child sexual exploitation (CSE) material, regardless of the intent, contributes to the re-victimization of the depicted children and is prohibited on Twitter.
This includes media, text, illustrations, or computer-generated images. This also applies to content that may further contribute to the victimization of children through the promotion or glorification of child sexual exploitation. For the purposes of this policy, Twitter defines a minor as any person under the age of 18.
In 2019, Twitter launched a feature in our search prompt that is aimed at deterrence of child sexual exploitation (CSE).
The prompt was developed in collaboration with the Ministry of Home Affairs and NGOs in India to blacklist specific CSE search keywords in Hindi, English, Bengali and Kannada. -IANS
