LUCKNOW, INDIA (AP) — A Hindu organization has filed a police complaint against Twitter’s national manager for displaying locations outside of a map of India on the company’s website, kicking off an investigation into a new issue for the tech giant. The Jammu and Kashmir territory, which is claimed by both India and Pakistan, and the Buddhist enclave of Ladakh outside India were shown on a map on Twitter’s careers page. This sparked a social media backlash this week, coming amid tight relations between Twitter and New Delhi over the company’s compliance with India’s new IT standards.
Manish Maheshwari, Twitter’s India CEO, and another corporate official are accused of breaking the country’s IT regulations as well as legislation aimed to prevent hostility and hatred across classes, according to the lawsuit.
“This has injured mine and the people of India’s sensibilities,” Praveen Bhati, a leader of the hardline Bajrang Dal in Uttar Pradesh’s northern state, said in a police complaint accessed by Reuters. He also labeled it a treasonous act. A request for comment from Twitter was not immediately returned. The map was no longer viewable on the site as of Tuesday. Maheshwari was only recently called by Uttar Pradesh police for failing to prevent the dissemination of a video that allegedly incited religious strife. In that lawsuit, Maheshwari was granted relief by a court.
Ravi Shankar Prasad, India’s technology minister, has chastised Twitter for failing to follow Indian laws and denied him access to his account.
Last year, the leader of an Indian parliamentary body accused Twitter of violating New Delhi’s sovereignty after mapping data incorrectly identified Indian-ruled area as part of China, which Twitter promptly corrected.
(Saurabh Sharma contributed reporting; Sankalp Phartiyal wrote the piece; Edwina Gibbs edited it.)
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