Social media

Twitter, a US microblogging platform, has requested a legal review of many requests for material removal it received from the Indian government. A lawyer and official from the Information Technology (IT) Ministry who were aware of the matter acknowledged that Twitter had submitted a case to the Karnataka High Court opposing the takedown requests. According to sources with knowledge of the situation, Twitter has taken legal action against some of the government letters demanding it removes particular content uploaded on the microblogging website in its most recent dispute with the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology.

Twitter received a letter from the IT Ministry last month requesting that it comply with its directives by July 4 in order to maintain its safe harbor status under the intermediary rules.

The social network business filed a lawsuit against the Ministry’s content-blocking orders under Section 69(A) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 on Tuesday, alleging excessive use of power by government representatives. It has been learned that Twitter argued in its filing that many of these banning orders violate Section 69(A) of the Act both procedurally and substantively. This includes things like removing user-posted content without giving them a prior warning.

Another report claims that the business claimed MeitY failed to show how some of the content it wanted to be removed was in violation of Section 69. (A). Twitter has argued on many occasions that the criteria used to identify various accounts and pieces of information by the Ministry are “overbroad and arbitrary” or “disproportionate.”

According to a source, Twitter has also informed the court that some of the Ministry-identified content might relate to official political party accounts, and removing them might violate their right to free expression.

Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister for Railways, Communications, and Electronics and Information Technology, said that nations around the world, including India, are moving toward making social media accounts. She was speaking to the media at the Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India in Gandhinagar. He said,

“Social media is a powerful medium. It has a lot of influence in our lives today. Its accountability is a valid question across the world. Countries and societies across the world are moving in the direction to make social media accountable.” 

Source: indianexpress.com

Multiple accounts and a few tweets from the international advocacy organization Freedom House, journalists, legislators, and backers of the farmers’ protest had been requested to be blocked by the government on Twitter.

Between January 2012 and June 2021, Twitter—which has over 24 million users in India—received over 17,000 demands from the government to remove Twitter accounts and tweets, of which it cooperated with only 12.2%. Around 1,600 accounts, 3,800 tweets, and 6,300 items were withheld in violation of Twitter’s terms of service.

According to the regulations governing these blocking orders, the government must submit any requests for blocking to a review committee, which subsequently provides these instructions. The majority of blocking orders issued under Section 69(A) of the IT Act are private in nature.

Days after giving the firm “one final opportunity” to abide by its blocking orders, the Ministry was sued by Twitter. The Ministry issued a warning in a memo late last month, stating that the company ran the risk of losing its immunity as an intermediary if the microblogging site did not remove content it had reported. Twitter had until July 4 to abide by the Ministry’s banning instructions.

India accounted for the fourth-highest number of lawful material takedown requests to Twitter between January and June 2021, according to the company’s most recent global transparency report. In the reporting period, Twitter received 43,387 legal requests to remove information referencing 196,878 accounts, with 11% of all requests coming from India.

Twitter noted a 1,060 percent rise in blocked accounts during this time period, noting that this was specifically due to Twitter’s compliance with an Indian blocking order issued under the Information Technology Act of 2000 in India.