X Withholds Some Posts On ECI’s Directions, Asks Poll Body To Publish All Takedown Orders

Elon Musk-owned social media giant X on Tuesday (April 16) said it has withheld some political posts on the orders of the Election Commission of India (ECI) but expressed its disagreement with the takedown orders.

The official handle of X’s global government affairs said the platform “disagrees” with the takedown orders issued by the Commission, and also published copies of the takedown orders. 

The orders largely pertained to posts that violated the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). 

“The Election Commission of India has issued takedown orders requiring X to act on posts containing political speech shared from elected politicians, political parties and candidates for office. In compliance with the orders, we have withheld these posts for the remainder of the election period; however, we disagree with these actions and maintain that freedom of expression should extend to these posts and political speech in general,” the global government affairs handle said on the platform.

The social media major added that it has notified the users impacted by the move and said it was publishing the takedown orders “in the interest of transparency”.

“We call on the Election Commission to publish all of its takedown orders going forward,” it said.

The takedown orders posted by X revealed that the posts (that were ordered to be taken down) were made from the handles of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister (CM) N Chandrababu Naidu and Bihar deputy CM Samrat Choudhary. Besides, two posts made from the party handles of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Yuvajana Sramika Rythu Congress Party (YSRCP) were also ordered to be taken down for violating the MCC. 

This is not the first time that X has sparred with the Indian authorities. In July 2022, X (then Twitter) approached the Karnataka High Court (HC) and challenged the Indian government’s orders to block some accounts, URLs, and tweets. 

Citing violation of freedom of speech, the platform sought a judicial review of the content takedown orders. Eventually, the platform lost the case and was even directed to pay INR 50 Lakh in fine. The Musk-led platform then challenged the ruling before another bench of the same HC in August last year.