Twitter on Thursday said it was very concerned with the “recent events” regarding its employees in the country and “the potential threat to freedom of expression” for its users.

“We, alongside many in civil society in India and around the world, have concerns with regards to the use of intimidation tactics by the police in response to enforcement of our global Terms of Service, as well as with core elements of the new IT Rules. We plan to advocate for changes to elements of these regulations that inhibit free, open public conversation,” a Twitter spokesperson said.

The statement by the social media intermediary comes days after the Special Cell of Delhi Police had earlier this week on Monday knocked on the doors of Twitter India’s Delhi and Gurgaon offices to allegedly serve a notice asking the company executives to join in the probe regarding the alleged “toolkit” seeking to undermine Indian government’s response to Covid-19, released on Twitter.

The micro-blogging platform would continue “constructive dialogue” with the Indian government to adopt a collaborative approach to safeguard the interests of the public, the spokesperson said.

Apart from its concerns over the police visit, Twitter also said that the company was concerned that one person, the chief compliance officer, was being made criminally liable for all the content on the platform.

The requirement of proactive monitoring and a near blanket authority to the government and its agencies to seek information about users represented a dangerous overreach, which was inconsistent with democratic principles followed in countries, the company said.

The action by Delhi Police is also the latest in a series of flashpoints over the last six months between the Centre and the US-based social media giant over critical tweets on a range of issues – from the farmers’ protests to the Government’s Covid response.

In January and February, Twitter had initially refused to take down certain tweets about farmer protests flagged by the IT Ministry for allegedly “spreading misinformation” and having the potential to “lead to imminent violence affecting public order situation in the country”.

This led to the IT Ministry threatening to jail Twitter India employees if the platform failed to act. Twitter India backed down, and later said it had complied with 95 per cent of requests that the Government had made.

(With inputs from agencies)