July 6, 2022
Twitter has sued the Indian government at Kamataka High in Bengaluru, seeking to challenge some of the block orders on tweets and accounts. Twitter accused the Indian government of abusing its power by ordering it to remove several tweets arbitrarily and disproportionately from its platform.
The company also claimed that New Delhi had threatened to launch criminal proceedings against its chief compliance officer in India if the company did not comply with the orders.
According to the lawsuit, Twitter pointed out that some block orders “pertain to political content that is posted by official handles of political parties.”
“Blocking of such information is a violation of the freedom of speech guaranteed to citizen-users of the platform. Further, the content at issue does not have any apparent proximate relationship to the grounds under Section 69A,” Twitter argued.
Over the past year and a half, the Indian government has asked Twitter to delete several accounts and tweets, a demand that critics say is questionable because those affected were those who denounced Indian government policies and the Prime Minister.
The new IT rules, which came into force in 2021, left Twitter with little or no opportunity to challenge the takedown orders individually, and could lead to legal action against its compliance officers in the country.
The sources for this piece include an article in TechCrunch.
