Indian court dismisses Twitter’s argument against blocking accounts
The Karnataka High Court (HC) on Friday dismissed a petition filed by Twitter challenging several orders issued by the Indian government to remove some tweets and accounts. The HC also imposed a 5 million rupees ($61,000) fine on Twitter for its conduct of approaching the court without complying with the Central Government’s orders.
The costs are to be paid within 45 days of the court’s ruling to the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority. The court said an additional 5,000 rupees ($60.93) would have to be paid for every day that the payment is delayed.
"I am convinced with contention of the Centre that they have powers to block tweets and block accounts," the judge was quoted by PTI news agency while dismissing Twitter's petition.
“Hon’ble court upholds our stand. Law of the land must be followed,” Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw tweeted, reacting to the High Court's decision.
Between February 2021 and 2022, India’s federal Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued ten blocking orders to the media giant, directing it to take down over 1,400 accounts, 175 tweets, 256 URLs and one hashtag under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
In July 2022, Twitter challenged MeitY’s orders, calling them arbitrary and against freedom of speech and expression, as enshrined in Article 14 of the Indian Constitution. According to the petition filed by the company, it has challenged blocking orders for 39 of URLs cited by the Ministry.
Twitter argued that account holders had to be informed about taking down their tweets and accounts, but no notice was issued by the Ministry to these account holders. It also claimed the Central Government was not empowered to issue general orders calling for blocking social media accounts, while reasons for actions must be communicated to users.
The government disputed this statement stating that, being a foreign entity, Twitter cannot invoke the fundamental rights guaranteed to Indian citizens and companies under the Constitution of India.
Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar commented on the HC’s ruling, reiterating the Indian government’s stand on the issue. “Dorsey's Twitter regime had a problem accepting the sovereignty of Indian law. It behaved as if the laws of India did not apply to it. India as a sovereign nation has the right to ensure that its laws are followed by all companies operating in India,” he said in a Twitter post.
This is an outright lie by @jack - perhaps an attempt to brush out that very dubious period of twitters history Facts and truth@twitter undr Dorsey n his team were in repeated n continuous violations of India law. As a matter of fact they were in non-compliance with law… https://t.co/SlzmTcS3Fa
— Rajeev Chandrasekhar 🇮🇳 (@Rajeev_GoI) June 13, 2023
Twitter's ex-CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey earlier claimed New Delhi pressed Twitter to censor posts related to the 2021 Indian farmer protests.
During Indian PM Narendra Modi’s US visit earlier this month, Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, said the company must obey local laws or could risk losing its business.
