On Tuesday, Twitter asked the Indian court to cancel certain government orders to remove content says U.S. News.
- The conflict between Twitter and the Indian ministry continues.
- The Indian government warned the company of Criminal proceedings last month.
- India claims to have had its constitutional right violated through Twitter.
Legal Steps
The company’s attempt to get a judicial review of the orders is part of a growing confrontation with New Delhi. India has been asking Twitter over the past year to act on the content. This includes accounts supporting an independent Sikh state, posts carrying misinformation and content related to the farmer’s protest. The Indian IT ministry took time to respond to this legal move by Twitter.
IT Ministry
Last month the Indian IT ministry warned Twitter of criminal proceedings if it did not comply with its orders. Twitter did comply with these. Twitter, which market research firms say has nearly 24 million users in India, also argues in its filing that some of the orders failed to give notice to the authors of the content. It says that some were related to political content posted by official handles of political parties. It claimed that blockage of such content would be a violation of freedom of speech.
Orders by the Indian Government
The conflict between Twitter and the Indian ministry peaked last year when they denied complying with all the orders. These were the orders where the Indian Ministry wanted a ban on all the accounts it claimed were spreading misinformation. Twitter was also subjected to police investigation in India. Along with this, they had to face a backlash for blocking accounts of influential individuals including politicians. India, which industry transparency reports show has among the highest government requests for content takedowns, is considering some amendments to its new IT rules. These include the introduction of a government-run appeals panel with the power to reverse the content moderation decisions of social media firms.
New Delhi has said such measures were needed because the companies had violated India’s constitutional rights.
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Source: U.S. News
