Twitter to translate user policies in Hindi, Urdu

New Delhi, Apr 26: Twitter is working on making its user policies available in Indian languages like Hindi and Urdu to increase 'informed' usage of the microblogging site across non-English speaking population in the country.

The user policies, which are guidelines to the kind of content that can be shared on the website, are currently available in English in India.

"India is an important country for us... One of our focus areas is to educate the users. There is a large non-English speaking population... We are working on translating our policies in languages like Hindi and Urdu," Twitter General Counsel Vijaya Gadde told.

This will help users understand the policies better and they can decide what content kind of content they want to share, she added. Currently, Twitter offers its terms and conditions in German, French, Portugese, Spanish and Korean.

It has recently updated its usage terms, which will be effective May 18, 2015.

Twitter already allows its users to tweet in Devanagari script (Hindi, Marathi and Sanskrit), Gurmukhi, Gujarati, Bengali, Oriya, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Urdu and Sindhi.

Though the company has not disclosed the size of its user base in the country, it has stated that India ranks amongst its fastest growing markets.

Twitter also did not disclose how many of its users use the services in regional/vernacular languages.

According to Twitter rules, the company does not actively monitor and censor user content, except in limited circumstances like cases of impersonation, copyright and trademark infringement, violence, threats, and unlawful use. [Modi meets Twitter CEO, urges site to help promote India's tourism]

"Twitter strives to protect its users from abuse and spam. User abuse and technical abuse are not tolerated on Twitter.com, and may result in permanent suspension. Any accounts engaging in the activities specified below may be subject to permanent suspension," read the rules.

Gadde said one of the major concerns of the company in India is user safety.

"I would say for India, we are more focussed on online safety... We are focussed on educating the users on how they can leverage Twitter as a medium to discover and receive content from sources that interest them and share content with others," she said.

Gadde added that the company receives content removal requests from Indian authorities on grounds like national security, abuse, hate speech and copyright infringement.

According to Twitter's Transparency Report, the social network during July-December 2014 received 41 account information requests from the Indian government and information was provided in 22 per cent cases.

Similarly, one removal request from court and 14 from government agencies were received by Twitter in the said period.

PTI