On June 5, social media giant Twitter approached Karnataka High Court against the Government of India’s orders to take down some content and handles from its platform over violation of the law. As per News Agency Reuters, Twitter has claimed abuse of power by the GoI officials in its plea to the court.
Twitter pursues legal review of Indian orders to take down content https://t.co/bNfavayBZd pic.twitter.com/CDo2VqhCQ6
— Reuters (@Reuters) July 5, 2022
Notably, in the past year, the Indian authorities have asked the microblogging site to remove, block or withhold content and accounts that support an independent Sikh state, spread misinformation about farm protests and tweets spreading misleading information about Covid-19 management in the country.
Recently, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) sent a final warning to Twitter to comply with the take-down orders by July 4 else it might lose its immunity as an intermediary. On July 4, Twitter said it complied with the GoI orders. As per reports, GoI had asked Twitter to act on content related to Khalistan and terrorism in Kashmir. In June, the authorities sent a list of around 60 accounts that needed to be taken down because they had violated Indian law.
Some of the accounts that were withheld or some content of the accounts were withheld by GoI orders include alleged journalist Rana Ayyub, pro-Khalistani author Aman Bali, pro-Khalistani activist Ravi Singh who is also the founder of Khalsa Aid and more.
As per Reuters, Twitter has claimed in its plea that some of the removal orders did not fulfil the procedural requirements per the IT Act. It claimed that some of the orders were related to the content posted by the official handles of political parties, and blocking such content would amount to a violation of freedom of speech.
The GoI has not reacted to the reports of Twitter’s plea in court.
