Twitter responds to FIR over child pornography, says it has 'zero tolerance policy for child sexual exploitation'

The Delhi Police said on Tuesday that it registered an FIR against Twitter for allegedly allowing access to child pornography on the microblogging platform on a complaint by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR).A Twitter spokesperson has now responded to the FIR saying that the platform has "zero tolerance policy for child sexual exploitation (CSE)" and that the company uses a "proactive approach to combating sexual exploitation of minors on our service."

"Twitter has a zero tolerance policy for child sexual exploitation (CSE) and we have a proactive approach to 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."

The case has been registered under relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and the IT Act.The complaint was filed by Priyank Kanoongo, chairperson of NCPCR, who said that it was found that "the toolkit for deep and dark web" was also available on Twitter. This gives access to all, including children, to obtain CSAM.This is the fourth FIR against Twitter since it lost its legal shield in India.Earlier this week, Twitter's interim resident grievance officer for India stepped down, leaving the micro-blogging site without a grievance official as mandated by the new IT rules to address complaints from Indian subscribers.