Elon Musk’s X Challenges K’taka High Court Ruling On Centre’s Content Takedown Orders

Social media platform X, formerly Twitter, has reportedly appealed against the Karnataka High Court’s ruling on the company’s plea against some of the content takedown orders issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) under Section 69A of the IT Act.

As per a filing of the Elon Musk-led company in the Karnataka HC, accessed by Reuters, X argued that the court’s ruling would embolden the Indian government to issue more blocking orders.

The platform reportedly said that there must be some “discernible parameters” which mandate blocking of an account instead of a specific post. In absence of this, the government’s power to censor future content is “untrammeled”.

The matter dates back to July 2022, when Twitter moved the Karnataka HC against the takedown orders issued by the Centre. However, last month, the court dismissed the appeal and imposed a fine of INR 50 Lakh on the platform for non-compliance. 

However, this is not the first time when the social media platform has been at loggerheads with the Indian government. Under its previous CEO Jack Dorsey, the company was accused by the government of defying Indian laws. In June, Dorsey claimed that Indian authorities threatened to shut down the offices of the social media platform if it didn’t heed to their demands.

On the other hand, the government accused the platform of being biassed in curbing misinformation. Minister of State (MoS) for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar accused the Dorsey-led platform of displaying partisan behaviour. 

Earlier, the social media platform said that India was one of the most active nations in the world to ask for content removal.Interestingly, the legal battle involving X comes at a time when Musk is looking to enter the Indian market with his electric car brand Tesla. The electric car manufacturer is in talks with the government to set up a manufacturing plant in the country.