Musk’s ‘X’ challenges Indian Court ruling Content blocking orders

Social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, has sought to withdraw the Indian court decision that found it disobeying content removal orders. The CEO argued back that this could embolden the government to block more content from social media. 

Elon Musk’s social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, challenges the Karnataka High Court’s latest decision of dismissing the social media giant’s plea against the Indian government’s order to block the tweet contents and accounts. 

The Karnataka High Court dismissed the plea of the social media platform ‘X’, as absent of merit and imposing a fine of Rs 50 lakh on X. 

Government Orders

The Government of India had ordered the X, formerly known as Twitter, to remove some of it’s contents in the country or block them altogether from its platform under the imposition of the new IT rules. 

The court ruling from the Karnataka High Court came weeks after the government rejected the ex-CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey’s claim that India had threatened Twitter to shut down the social media platform if it didn’t comply with the orders of the Indian government. 

Reason behind the Order

Social Media is a great way to transfer information worldwide, whether it is useful, harmful or a rumor. 

Situations in India have not been going on as very pleasant for the past some time, whether political or civil.

False rumors and information 

Several accounts on Twitter were posting false information, hatred filled tweets and constantly sharing rumors and information that could lead to disastrous consequences during the Farmers protest in 2021. India ordered Twitter to restrict those accounts which were not paid attention to. 

Twitter did not comply with the order which led to a court ruling today over X, as Twitter still continues to resent the order. 

X has been constantly ordered by the Government Authorities of India to take legal action on the content which is including accounts which support independent Sikh state, which is a threat to the national integrity of the country and it’s peace, and some posts from the accounts used to spread all wrong information about the farmers protest, and some tweets were related to criticism of the government measures taken to handle the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Constant ignoring of the order

All the tweets and factors had been taken into account before passing the orders, but still the CEO of X, billionaire Elon Musk, is asking which tweets the government is referring to. 

Following the order, the minister reported that the bench during the verdict said that Twitter had not given any reason why it delayed compliance, and that too more than a year of delay, and then all of a sudden it complies and approaches the court. 

Why is X ignorant of the Orders

According to the filing cited by Reuters, X said that there must be particularly discernible parameters on what grounds the blocking of an entire account instead of a specific post, otherwise the power of government will rise to block or censor the future content of the platform.That the Government can control the X in whatever way it likes. 

If the appeal of the X is rejected, the government will for sure be emboldened to issue more blocking orders on the social media platform that violate the law, X said through its representative of local law firm Poovayya & Co, according to the reports. 

According to the survey, the continuation of this matter leading to banning of the social media platform itself is almost as near zero, but the chances cannot be wholly eliminated, if the same government stays in the ruling power.