‘All platforms in India have to comply with Indian law’: MoS IT after Karnataka HC dismisses Twitter’s plea

The High Court of Karnataka on Friday dismissed a petition filed by Twitter Inc. challenging several blocking and take-down orders issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, saying the company's plea was devoid of merits. To this, Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, stated that all platforms in India are required to comply with Indian law. In a statement to PTI, the minister stated: “Our relationship with (social media) platforms isn't adversarial. Our insistence is that law must be followed. I am glad that the court has today laid down that non-compliance isn't an option. All platforms in India have to comply with Indian law.”

VIDEO | "Our relationship with (social media) platforms isn't adversarial. Our insistence is that law must be followed. I am glad that the court has today laid down that non-compliance isn't an option. All platforms in India have to comply with Indian law," says Union Minister… pic.twitter.com/ExO0jWugpD

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) June 30, 2023

He also accused that Twitter, under the former CEO Jack Dorsey, refused to comply with Indian law.

''In this particular case as you remember they (Twitter) were given a large number of directions under the law which they did not comply with and then when they were sent a legal notice they chose to go to the courts. This is part of the fiction that Mr Dorsey had also put out,'' Chandrasekhar told PTI on the sidelines of a Broadband India Forum event.

Dorsey had recently stated that Twitter received threats of being booted out of India after not accepting the request to block certain accounts at the peak of the farmers' protest by the government. He said: “India is a country that had many requests of us around the farmers’ protest, around particular journalists that were critical of the government and it manifested in ways such as ‘we will shut Twitter down in India’, which is a very large market for us. ‘We will raid the homes of your employees’, which they did; ‘we will shut down your offices if you don’t follow suit’. And this is India, a democratic country”.

#WATCH | I hope there is a learning from this experience of Twitter and this behaviour of Twitter that platforms working with the govt of India, working with the citizens and consumers of India work with the compliance of the Indian law...There is ample room to grow lawfully and… https://t.co/CyKevHIgBL pic.twitter.com/MSWC27EJKn

— ANI (@ANI) June 30, 2023

Responding to these claims, the minister said that this was an outright lie. Elon Musk also addressed the situation and said Twitter had no choice but to adhere to the regulations imposed by the Indian government, stating that failure to do so would have resulted in the micro-blogging platform being shut down. He expressed the view that one cannot simply apply American principles universally, highlighting the need to respect and comply with the laws of each country.

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All platforms hv to be in compliance with Indian law n @Twitter under @jack repeatedly refused to do so. In response to @GoI_MeitY 's notice for non-compliance they approached Karnataka High Court n judgement 👇🏻

✅Karnataka High Court has dismissed the petition filed by…

— Rajeev Chandrasekhar 🇮🇳 (@Rajeev_GoI) June 30, 2023

In the court, Twitter had argued that the Central government was not empowered to issue general orders calling for blocking of social media accounts. It further added that to do so, the government needs to specify reason for blocking their accounts so that it can be communicated to users.

To this, Justice Krishna S Dixit told the social media company that the government has the power to issue blocking orders.

In addition to this, Twitter has been charged with Rs 50 lakh fine for failing to comply with the orders and not providing a reason for the delay. The court has dismissed Twitter’s petitions. The court has further instructed Twitter to pay the imposed fine to Karnataka legal services authority with a span of 45 days. In case there is any delay in the payment of cost, a fine of Rs 5,000 per day will be imposed on the company.

Justice Dixit told Twitter that it is not a farmer/ labourer who doesn’t know the law, but is instead, a billion-dollar company. He further added that Twitter is free to argue before court to change the cost imposed.

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