Twitter challenges Indian government in court after complying with final notice on content removal
The firm alleges that New Delhi is misusing its authority by directing it to arbitrarily and disproportionately delete many posts from its platform
On Tuesday, Twitter initiated legal action against the Indian government, disputing many of the government's directives to block access to certain posts on its micro-blogging platform.
The firm stated in a lawsuit that it filed on Tuesday in the Karnataka High Court in Bengaluru that New Delhi had misused its authority by directing it to arbitrarily and disproportionately delete many posts from its platform.
It argued that some of the ban orders pertain to political material uploaded by official accounts 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 stated.
Additionally, Twitter said that some of the blocking orders did not notify the content creators.
The firm said that New Delhi threatened to file charges against its top compliance officer in India if the company did not comply with the directives.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology issued a final warning to Twitter on June 27, setting a compliance deadline of July 4.
This week, Twitter complied with the majority of the requests, which were made under the Information Technology Act, 2000, in order to maintain its intermediary status in the country.
Had the company lost its intermediary status, it would have been legally responsible for all comments posted on the platform.
The IT Act gives the federal government the authority to restrict public access to specific content for a variety of reasons, including protecting the nation's security.
Twitter's attempt to get a judicial review of the government's orders follows a difficult year and a half in India.
It has been asked multiple times to delete hundreds of accounts and tweets, including those in support of an independent Sikh state, those allegedly used to spread false information about farmer protests, and those critical of how the government was handling the Covid-19 pandemic.
Twitter has agreed with the demands in part, while attempting to fight back against many of the challenges.
Last year, Twitter angered the Indian government by refusing its request to remove more than 1,100 accounts and posts, which the government said were spreading misinformation about farmer protests.
The firm said it was unable to fully comply with orders from the government as it believed they were not coherent with Indian law.
While the company suspended some accounts, those run by journalists, activists, politicians and news media were not deleted, in line with its policy of defending freedom of speech.