Twitter officials appear before parliamentary panel chaired by Shashi Tharoor

NEW DELHI: In the midst of a conflict between the Union government and Twitter over new IT rules, Twitter officials testified before a parliamentary panel chaired by Congress' Shashi Tharoor on Friday about curbing social media misuse.

The Centre issued a notice to Twitter earlier this month, offering it one final chance to "quickly" comply with the new IT requirements and warning that failing to do so would result in the platform losing its exemption from accountability under the IT Act.

Last week, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information and Technology, chaired by Tharoor summoned Twitter over issues of platform misuse and citizen rights protection.

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Shagufta Kamran, Twitter India's public policy manager and Ayushi Kapoor, Twitter's legal counsel testified before the panel on Friday.

For the past few months, Twitter and the Centre have been at odds over a number of problems.

After briefly removing the 'blue tick' verification badge from the personal accounts of Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu and numerous prominent RSS functionaries, including RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, the microblogging service received reaction.

Delhi Police issued a notice to Twitter demanding an explanation for how it classified an alleged "Congress toolkit" against the government as distorted media.

Over the toolkit issue, the police reportedly questioned Twitter India MD Manish Maheshwari on May 31 and visited the Twitter India offices in Delhi and Gurgaon on May 24.

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