Twitter tenders apology over Leh map fiasco

New Delhi: The microblogging site Twitter has tendered a verbal apology before the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) constituted to review the data protection Bill after Leh was shown as part of China during a live broadcast.

The panel had shown strong displeasure and asked Twitter to tender a written apology and submit an affidavit over the issue. The controversy came to the fore last week when a journalist started a live Twitter broadcast from a war memorial in Leh and realised that the location said People's Republic of China.

It also prompted the secretary of the ministry of electronics and information technology to write to Twitter's chief executive Jack Dorsey to express the government's disapproval of the move.

The JPC had on Wednesday criticised representatives from Twitter for showing Leh as part of China and said that it amounts to an act of treason.

It had raised legal issues regarding data protection as well. The committee also took into account instances of shadow-banning, taking down of accounts arbitrarily, lack of accountability and transparency when it comes to policies and data transfers and location of data centres.