Twitter apologizes to Indian parliament panel in China geolocation dispute

Social media giant Twitter Inc has apologized to an Indian parliamentary panel for showing an area of the northern Himalayas as part of China, promising to make corrections by the end of the month, said Wednesday the head of the panel.

Twitter’s privacy officer Damien Kieran sent a letter of apology to the Joint Committee on the Personal Data Protection Bill after the company geotagged the northern territory of India from Ladakh in neighboring China, panel leader Meenakashi Lekhi told Reuters.

“They have apologized in writing for hurting the feelings of Indians,” said Lekhi, also a member of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata (BJP) party.

“We are committed to protecting India’s assets – both physically and digitally.”

Twitter assured the panel that the issue would be resolved by November 30, she added.

Twitter executives appeared before the panel last month to explain the mistake, with Lekhi accusing the company of not respecting India’s sovereignty.

The error came to light after some Twitter users marked their posts as being in Ladakh, but the geo-tag showed their location in China.

Twitter at the time said the error was quickly corrected.

India and China, armed with nuclear weapons, waged a brief but bloody border war in 1962 and are currently locked in a months-long military standoff along their disputed Himalayan border which includes the Ladakh region.

The territory is claimed in its entirety by its main rivals India and Pakistan, while China claims a part in the east known as Aksai Chin.

Indian lawmakers and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government are at odds with America’s tech giants.

Lekhi slammed Amazon last month, threatening coercive action against the e-commerce giant after it failed to appear before its panel, while Facebook was questioned by another parliamentary panel about its content regulation practices .