The Indian court has rejected Elon Musk’s attempt to challenge the Indian government’s content takedown order by X, finding that as a foreign company, the social media platform does not have the constitutional right to free speech under Indian law.
The Karnataka High Court ruled on Wednesday in favor of the Indian government using a centralized online portal to issue an order that has been stolen from content. The court said that this free expression constitution applies only to Indian citizens. The decision marks a key moment in India’s increasingly assertive approach to regulating global high-tech companies.
X filed a lawsuit in March, challenging a series of Indian government orders directing the platform to block certain accounts and posts that contain content critical to its official policy. At the heart of the conflict was the use of “sahyog.” This is a government portal launched in October that allowed authorities to remove content to direct orders to social media companies. Sahyog means “support” in Hindi. X called it a “censorship portal” and argued that the process lacked transparency and violated the principle of free expression.
“Article 19 of the Indian Constitution is noble in its spirit and bright in its promise, and nevertheless remains a charter of rights granted solely to citizens. The petitioner seeking sanctuary under the canopy must be a citizen of the nation.
The ruling comes when Musk expanded his footprint in India beyond the X, recently launched a Tesla business and secured final regulatory approval for his satellite internet service Starlink. South Asian countries are a strategic bet for billionaires, boasting the world’s second largest internet user base after China and the government pledged to achieve 30% electric vehicle adoption by 2030.
X did not respond to requests for comment. The legal representative of X in India could not immediately comment on the verdict.
Kazim Rizvi, founder of The Dialogue, a New Delhi-based think tank, said that while it could improve coordination between the government and the platform, he warned that “due diligence” should not become a blanket obligation to comply, especially if takedowns comply. Includes blocking and procedural protection. )
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“To avoid unintended legal effects, the portal must act strictly as a coordination and collection layer. It is a safe intake and routing point for requests, and binding actions must come from competent authority under IT laws/regulations,” he told TechCrunch.
As more people go online, content takedown orders have increased in India over the past few years. Several instances of inter-platform content removal, including X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and Instagram, occurred during the 2020-2021 farmer protests nationwide. These protests saw extensive social media activities that the government had sought to control.
The federal government last year claimed it would introduce the Sahyog portal to promote the removal of illegal content from social media and streamline enforcement. Companies including Microsoft, Google, Meta, ShareChat and LinkedIn are already consolidating their portals to remove content after receiving notifications through automated processes triggered by the federal government or its agencies.
In February 2024, X said it opposed the order but withheld certain accounts in response to an enforcement directive from the Indian government. The company said the non-compliance violation could have exposed it to “potential penalties including substantial fines and imprisonment.”
Legal experts who worked closely with tech companies and the Indian government to work closely with policy issues and called for anonymity due to the sensitive nature of their work told TechCrunch that the ruling on Wednesday was important. The decision, they said, shows that the courts are increasingly looking at internet regulations and technology policies through policy lenses, not just legal lenses.
Musk, who called himself a “free speech absolutist,” previously raised concerns about India’s content regulation laws, but has not commented on the lawsuit and ruling.
“India’s rules regarding what can appear on social media are very strict and cannot exceed the laws of the country,” Musk said in a 2023 interview with the BBC.
X can appeal the award to the Supreme Court. However, some legal experts argue that it is unclear whether the company will be treated favorably, as the Supreme Court is likely to follow the same reasoning as the Karnataka High Court.
“The government was not dealing with whether they had to even have the authority to use the portal to order content takedowns,” said a technology policy expert who called for the name not to be named because of the close ties between the Indian government and major tech companies.
The court will release a copy of the order Thursday, the judge said.
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