Karnataka High Court on Monday heard a petition by microblogging platform Twitter opposing the Central government’s order asking it to block certain accounts, URLs and tweets. Twitter objected to the orders, citing a violation of free speech, and authorities failed to notify the alleged violators before asking Twitter to take down the content. On September 1, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) filed a 101-page statement opposing Twitter’s petition. Senior advocate Arvind Datar, appearing on Twitter Monday online, argued that the company was following the rules set out in the Information Technology Act.
He said Twitter because a platform was affected by the Center asked it to take down the account without notifying the alleged violators.
The center has asked to block wholesale accounts that would affect their business, he said.
He said some celebrities have accounts on Twitter. Another contradiction that Datar raised was that instead of blocking the deemed inappropriate tweet, it was reported to have self-locked the account for political content.
He cited the example of farmers’ protest in Delhi and claimed content broadcast in news media had been ordered to be blocked on Twitter.
“During the farmers’ protest, I was asked to lock my account. Television and newspapers are reporting. Why are they asking me to lock my account?”, he argued.
Datar cited the Supreme Court in the ‘Shreya Singhal’ case where the IT Act Block Rule was upheld and said it was mandatory to notify intermediaries like Twitter and hear them before the block order was passed. .
He therefore stated that all blocking orders issued by MeitY were against the SC ruling and the Blocking Rules of IT Acts 6 and 8. The senior advocate presented an example of a specific block order. where Twitter was asked to block 1,178 accounts. The government didn’t notify them (the account holders) and Twitter wasn’t allowed to notify them either. Datar argued that the requirements of Section 69A of the IT Act had not been complied with. He cited the example of a Tweet that the government ordered to be deleted. Datar argues that Twitter itself blocks tweets it deems false.
He said tweets promoting “Khalistan” were blocked by Twitter. However, 50 to 60% of tweets ordered to be blocked by the government are “innocent”. Datar said Twitter accepts that there are disapproved tweets, and Twitter regularly deletes them. Even in government orders, legitimate tweets are blocked. All Twitter is looking for is to follow the process and give notice before blocking tweets. It was also highlighted that blocking accounts rather than tweets was cause for concern. A Delhi High Court ruling was cited in which the owner of a frozen account went to the court. The Center is also a party that has argued that it is wrong to block the entire account. HC has ruled that Twitter cannot suspend an entire account unless the majority of tweets from that account are illegal.
The High Court adjourned the trial to October 17.
