In a significant legal development, the Karnataka High Court has dismissed a plea filed by Twitter, challenging the Indian central government’s directive to block certain objectionable accounts and content on the platform. The court ruled that the government holds the authority to issue blocking orders, cementing the government’s powers in regulating online spaces.
Furthermore, the court has slapped Twitter with a hefty fine of INR 50 lakh due to its failure to comply with the government’s blocking orders and for providing no reasonable explanation for the delay. The court dismissed all of Twitter’s appeals and ordered the social media giant to remit the penalty to the Karnataka legal services authority within 45 days. Should there be a delay in payment, the company will face an additional fine of INR 5,000 per day.
Presiding over the case, Justice Krishna S Dixit emphasised that Twitter, being a billion-dollar company, is well-versed in legal matters and is not a clueless entity. He also noted that Twitter is at liberty to argue its case in court regarding the imposed fine.
The defense for Twitter was led by Senior Advocates Ashok Haranahalli and Arvind Datar, and Advocate Manu Kulkarni, while the Central government was represented by Additional Solicitor General of India R Sankaranarayanan.
Twitter asserted that the Central government lacked the power to issue blanket orders for the blocking of social media accounts without providing specific reasons that could be communicated to its users. In response, the government stated that the blocking order was issued in the interest of public safety and national security, aimed at preventing instances of mob violence and lynching.
The lawsuit was filed in response to ten blocking orders issued between February 2021 and 2022, which directed Twitter to remove 39 URLs.
Earlier, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey claimed that Twitter received threats of being expelled from India if it didn’t comply with blocking requests during the height of the farmers’ protest. Current CEO, Elon Musk, responded by saying Twitter had no option but to respect the Indian government’s regulations, emphasising that American principles cannot be universally applied. Failure to abide would have led to the platform’s shutdown in India.
The news story is based on an article from businesstoday.in.
