How Twitter has miserably failed to tame parody accounts in India

NEW DELHI: Parody accounts on Twitter were meant to post fun-laden tweets to delight the followers. Instead, they have become fake news factories, misleading the users on burning issues in India.

Twitter accounts that pose as another person, brand or organisation in a confusing or deceptive manner have seen a meteoric rise in India, tweeting misinformation to change the narrative of the day.

No one is spared in this misinformation war, be it politicians, mediapersons, celebrities and common Twitter users, who fall to the trap and retweet or file stories basis those parody/fake handles that have mushroomed on Twitter and the algorithms have miserably failed to track and flag/remove those.

In fact, India is such a big market for Twitter and it ought to have given far more attention to compliances under the Indian law, but it appears that there is a lot of gap between what the law wants Twitter to do versus what Twitter actually does.

Today, Twitter is infested with fake and parody accounts in India. Most of these accounts are being used for the purposes of targeting a particular person or for the purposes of forwarding or perpetuating a particular philosophy, political, religious or otherwise.

"Most of the fake accounts are targeting individuals, often hitting them below their belt so as to prejudicially impact the reputation, goodwill, standing or repute in society," Pavan Duggal, one of the nation's top cyber law experts and a seasoned Supreme Court lawyer said.

The time has been such that intermediaries like Twitter now need to revise and review their existing strategies.

"Today, the basic presumption has to be that if somebody is complaining of a parody or fake account, there is a legitimate legal injury or damage that is being caused to the said aggrieved person. Service providers today are engaging in activities which lead to double jeopardy or doubly harassing the affected party who already has been impacted by the fake or parody accounts," Duggal lamented.

An aggrieved person should not be asked to go through another round of harassment in the hands of social media service providers by exposing them to bureaucratic approach.

Twitter says its users are allowed to create parody, newsfeed, commentary or fan accounts. The company says it reviews impersonation claims upon receipt of a valid impersonation report and does not "actively monitor users' content".

According to Virag Gupta, a lawyer who is arguing the case before Delhi High Court for disclosure of designated officers details of Twitter and foreign social media companies in India, the whole exercise to take action on parody accounts by twitter is flawed.

"It is ironic to see that Twitter asks the original account holder to furnish a copy of the FIR against the parody account impersonating him/her, and asks for their credentials rather than acting on the parody accounts that even have the verified Blue Tick. This is nothing but travesty of the Indian law caused by intermediaries like Twitter," Gupta said.

Twitter impersonation policy reads that if you are the impersonated party or an authorised representative, "you can file an impersonation report. If you believe an account is impersonating somebody else, you can flag it as a bystander by reporting directly from the account's profile".

However, there is no action against several such parody/fake accounts that have left the fun part behind, and are now actively participating in spreading the misinformation. (IANS)

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