X Sues Modi Government Over Content Removal Practices in India
The lawsuit comes as Elon Musk seeks to expand his ventures, including Starlink and Tesla, in India
Elon Musk’s social media platform, X (formerly Twitter), has filed a lawsuit against the Indian government, specifically targeting the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, over allegations of unlawful content removal practices.
The lawsuit claims that India’s IT Ministry has expanded its censorship powers, allowing numerous government officials to issue content-blocking orders through a government website launched by the Ministry of Home Affairs.
This mechanism, according to X, bypasses existing legal safeguards that require such orders to be issued only in cases threatening national security or public order and to be overseen by senior officials.
X argues that the government’s use of a website for issuing content-blocking orders creates an “unacceptable parallel system” that leads to “unrestrained censorship” in India.
The lawsuit asserts that this system lacks the robust legal protections present in Indian law, which mandates that content removal orders must be issued under strict oversight and in specific circumstances.
This legal action escalates an ongoing dispute between X and the Indian government, which previously involved a standoff over tweets related to farmers’ protests in 2021.
The case was briefly heard in the High Court of Karnataka and is scheduled for another hearing on March 27.
The lawsuit comes as Elon Musk seeks to expand his ventures, including Starlink and Tesla, in India.
