Elon Musk's Twitter takeover: India expects platform to comply with local rules
India's expectation of Twitter complying with the country's rules for social media platforms will not change with its takeover by Elon Musk, according to a senior minister.
The world's richest man and CEO of electric car maker Tesla Inc has become Twitter Inc's new owner and the self-described free speech absolutist fired top executives, including chief executive Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal and legal affairs and policy chief Vijaya Gadde.
"How does it matter to government who owns what. Our laws and rules are applicable to platforms regardless of who owns it or who doesn't own it," Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar told PTI in reply to a specific question on the ownership change at Twitter.
Musk's claim of allowing free speech on the platform has enthused many, particularly those who were banned by Twitter for violation of rules.
Bollywood actor Kangana Ranaut, who was banned from Twitter last year for violating its rules on hateful conduct and abusive behaviour, took to Instagram on Friday to hail articles about Musk's takeover.
She re-shared a fan's post in which he asked Elon Musk to restore the actor's account. Musk, who is the world's richest man, had in April made an unsolicited take-it-or-leave-it USD 44 billion takeover offer.
India is one of the largest markets for social media companies, and Twitter is no exception.
Twitter has millions of users in India - a country that offers a huge potential market for all internet giants not just in terms of users but also advertising.
But the microblogging platform has had confrontations with the government, the most recent being compliance with the new IT rules.
Musk himself had a track record of standoffs with
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