Regulatory Affairs: Twitter moves High Court against government orders

*The global tech giant claims the Indian Government’s demands for content regulation on Twitter platforms and takedown orders amounted to an ‘abuse of power’

Gbenga Kayode | ConsumerConnect

Leading microblogging site and social media platform Twitter has appealed to the Karnataka High Court, claiming the demands of content regulation on its platforms and takedown orders by the Indian Government amounted to an “abuse of power”.

ConsumerConnect learnt the United States-based Big Tech company last week stated in its writ petition, that orders from India’s Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) were “overboard and arbitrary, failed to provide notice to originators of the content” and were “disproportionate in several cases”.

It is not the first time the social media platform has had a tussle with the Indian authorities, according to report.

As it likewise had a brush with the Nigerian Government, leading to its ban for several months 2021, tensions between both Twitter and the Indian Government first surfaced when the global tech giant declined to fully comply with an order from the IT Ministry to take down accounts and posts that allegedly spread misinformation during the peak of the anti-government protests by farmers India.

However, things further soured as the Indian authorities, over the past year, asked Twitter to act on its content, which included accounts supportive of an independent Sikh state and tweets critical of the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Report also indicates since then, it has been an array of notices, warnings of criminal proceedings, police investigations, and disparate inculpations concocted with a general sense of disquiet among both parties.

While the Indian government claims Twitter’s policies breach the constitutional validity of Section 69A of the Information Technology (IT) Act, Twitter also rebuts that the government’s assertion fails to demonstrate how its content falls within the periphery of the Act or is a constitutional violation at all.

Twitter is, currently, logged in a fight with a government that reportedly has a history of taking criticisms head-on – online or offline.

And, this is where both are at a crossroads, according to ETTech report.

Time and again, Twitter has made it clear that some of the content the government asked it to take down was posted by the official handles of political parties, and blocking that is tantamount to a violation of freedom of speech and expression.

However, the California-based tech firm is not new to such controversies and backlashes.

It is also recalled that Twitter, in 2019, had to update its ‘hateful conduct rules’ to specifically prohibit language that dehumanised others based on religion after it came into the public ire for being unable to prevent trending hashtags and conversations en masse around religious discrimination.

Nonetheless, Twitter was caught in its echo chamber effect – something that’s seen as a feature or a bug, depending on who you ask.

What started out as a space for conversations around one’s interests also became filled with hateful content.

Add to this, the thousands of “fake followers” granting more legitimacy to the cacophony of tweets, retweets, and hashtags.

Elon Musk may pull out of $44bn acquisition deal

Meanwhile, such fake followers have now jeopardied Twitter’s $44billion buyout deal with Elon Musk, multibillion businessman and Tesla Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

According to the latest report in the Washington Post, Musk and his team are now second-guessing their bid to buy Twitter. The world’s richest man has already expressed his displeasure over the behemothic number of “fake accounts” and implied that he could walk out of the $44 billion deal that first surprised the global world April 2022.

It is should be stated that  the Indian Government has continued to tighten the noose on Big Techs on several occasions when it comes to content regulation in cyberspace.

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