Social media giant X on Monday warned that the recent ruling by the Karnataka HC allowing police to issue "arbitrary" content removal orders through a government portal threatens the constitutional rights of Indian citizens.
The microblogging platform, owned by Elon Musk expressed concern that the BJP-led Union Government's online censorship portal 'Sahyog' "enables officers to order content removal based solely on allegations of 'illegality', without judicial review or due process for the speakers, and threatens platforms with criminal liability for non-compliance."
It will "allow millions of police officers to issue arbitrary takedown orders," and "infringes Indian citizens' constitutional rights to freedom of speech and expression," X stated.
Rejecting a petition by the X seeking protection from coercive or prejudicial action against it for not joining the portal, the Karnataka HC on Wednesday said the plea was "without merit" and that social media was not exempt from regulation.
"Information and communication, its spread or speed, has never been left unchecked and unregulated. It has been a subject matter of regulation. As and when the technology develops from messengers to postal aids, to the age of WhatsApp, Instagram and Snapchat, all have been regulated by regulatory regimes subsisting then and subsisting today, both globally and locally," the court observed while pronouncing the order.
The court said that while X followed takedown orders in the United States, it had refused to follow similar orders in India. X said it would appeal the ruling.
In 2023, the Karnataka state high court fined X, then called Twitter, $61,000 after dismissing its plea challenging orders to remove comments and accounts critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.
Rights groups say freedom of expression is under broad threat in India, which is now at 151 out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index.
India has more than 900 million internet users, according to the Internet and Mobile Association of India.
(With inputs from AFP)