On June 30, the Karnataka High Court rejected twitters please countering the government’s order to block some accounts – the court stated that the petition filed by the social media platform was devoid of merit.
The HC Justice Krishna Dixit also charged a penalty of Rs.50,00,00 on the Elon Musk owned microblogging site for filing the petition. The duration in which the amount has to be paid is 45 days to Karnataka legal services authority. The delay in payment would cause an additional penalty of Rs.5000 per day for each day the payment is delayed after 45 days.
The High Court says that it agrees with the government order and mentions that the administration has the power to block both tweets as well as accounts. Further more, the court held that it had devised eight questions on law and facts to support its conclusion against the social media platform. The High Court also stated that it depended on several Indian as well as foreign judgements on the authority of the government to block content on the internet. Justice Dixit further said that the court has also looked into reason for whether or not to block an account, which should be communicated directly to the user.
In the court, Justice Dixit stated that Twitter is not an amateur in the industry contend It had not complied with the government directives as it did not know the law, but it is a billion dollar tech company.
The case was being closely probed for what some say was a challenge to the freedom of expression. Perhaps it also underlines the microblogging site difficult relationship with the Indian government, at a time when it was owned by Jack Dorsey and now even under the leadership of Elon Musk. Musk acquired Twitter in October last year $44 billion deal. Musk is often known for his advocacy for freedom of expression and for making Twitter a place for free speech. His content moderation policies have often been criticised by governments.
The social media platform had moved the High Court contending with government’s orders which according to Twitter, did not explain how the content violated the Information Technology Act. The government argued that it should necessary information and gave justification on the account blocking orders to Twitter.
in June 2022, the Government sent notices to the social media platform due to its non-compliance of the former’s blocking orders. The government cautions the company that for the non-compliance would result in removal of safe harbour immunity under section 79-1 of the information technology act.
The provision of safe harbour gives protection to social media intermediaries like Twitter and Facebook from being prosecuted for the content posted in their platforms. On the removal of this provision, the intermediary will be held responsible for content posted in the platform.
Between February 2021 and February 2022, the blocking orders in Twitter‘s petition were issued by the government.
According to section 69A of the Indian constitution – the central government, represented by MeitY, or any other specially authorised agency, can give blocking orders to platforms like Twitter on conditions like the interest of the sovereignty, security of the state, and so forth.
In December 2022, it was reported that Twitter under the leadership of mask would lean heavily on automation to moderate content and do away with certain mangle reviews and favour restrictions on distribution instead of removing certain speed outright. Twitter has become aggressive against abuse prone hashtags as well as search results in areas such as child exploitation, irrespective of potential impacts on benign uses of those terms.
The platform has faced tricky questions about its ability and willingness to moderate illegal and harmful content.
