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04-07-2023
Bureau Report + BBC
NEW DELHI: In July 2022, Twitter took the Indian government to court over its orders to block certain accounts and tweets. Several free speech experts hailed it as a significant lawsuit.
It was the first instance of a social media company suing the government over its content takedown orders, often criticized for being arbitrary and opaque.
Last week the Karnataka High Court dismissed Twitter’s case and imposed a fine of 5m rupees ($61,000; £48,000) on the company for not complying with the contested orders for over a year. Twitter has more than 24 million users in India, by one estimate.
The verdict has left many digital rights experts worried.
“The judgement reposes untrammeled power in the state to issue blocking orders that bypass procedural safeguards,” said Radhika Roy, a lawyer and spokesperson for digital rights organization Internet Freedom Foundation.
She added that the court could have countered “the rampant misuse” of law to take down unfavorable content on the internet, rather it has ended up legitimizing it.
Commentators are apprehensive about Twitter’s next move. Will the social media giant comply with the take down orders or appeal the judgement?
The case was filed by Twitter under its previous leadership. Under new owner Elon Musk, the company has complied with takedown orders.
After a recent meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the US, Musk said that the company has no choice “but to obey local government laws” or it risks getting shut.
The recent judgement raises concerns about free speech since the government has been accused of increasing its censorship of online content in recent years. Federal minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar has said that all foreign Internet platforms had to comply with Indian laws.
In 2022, India blocked 3,417 Twitter URLs, while only eight Twitter URLs had been blocked in 2014.
Twitter’s case was that 39 orders of the federal government to block access to accounts and tweets went against the law – India’s information technology law allows the government to block online content that “threatens the security of the state” and public order among other things.
It said that the government does not have the power to block accounts, but only specific tweets.
Further, it said that the orders had not been properly reasoned and that the grounds required for taking down content had not been made out by the government.
