NEW DELHI —
Twitter is challenging the
Indian government’s orders to block content on its
social media site in court, local media reported Wednesday citing legal
documents.
اضافة اعلان
The suit is the latest showdown between Twitter and
Indian authorities, which have been accused of muzzling criticism both on and
offline.
In the case filed with a court in
Bangalore, the
social media giant alleged that the basis on which multiple accounts and
content flagged by the government was either “overbroad and arbitrary” and
“disproportionate”, the Indian Express daily reported.
The social media
giant submitted to the Karnataka state high court that the ministry had failed
to prove how some of the content it wanted taken down violated IT rules, the
newspaper quoted sources as saying.
Last week Twitter confirmed that India had directed
it to locally censor accounts and dozens of posts, including some talking about
declining internet freedom in the world’s biggest democracy.
Others were accounts operated by the Pakistani
government, sparking an angry response from Islamabad.
Twitter and the Indian government declined to
comment on the court case.
Prime Minister
Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist
government has sought in recent years to have more control over content on
social media in India, where Twitter has over 20 million users.
Last year as India saw massive anti-government
protests by farmers, Twitter was ordered to take down dozens of accounts for
supporting the demonstrations.
But the US firm reinstated them, angering the
government.
An Indian climate activist was also arrested in
February 2021 on sedition charges for helping to edit a protest “tool kit” that
was tweeted by Greta Thunberg.
New Delhi has accused Twitter of deliberately
ignoring new IT rules — which critics fear could be used to silence dissent —
that came into force in May 2021.
That same month, police paid a visit to its offices
in the country after a tweet by a spokesperson for Modi’s Bharatiya Janata
Party was labelled as “manipulated media” on the platform.
Just before that, the government ordered Twitter and
Facebook to remove dozens of posts critical of Modi’s handling of the
coronavirus pandemic.
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