Twitter Habitually Non-Compliant, Can't Decide What Content Will Threaten National Security: Centre Opposes Plea Against Blocking Orders

The Central government has opposed the petition filed by US-based microblogging platform Twitter questioning several 'take down' orders issued by the Ministry of Electronic & IT, to pull down content including accounts regarding farmers' protest, alleged mismanagement of Covid-19.In its statement of objections filed before the Karnataka High Court, Centre said that it is not for an intermediary platform like Twitter to define what free speech is and what content will cause national security or public order issues."When a public order issue arises, it is the government that is responsible to take action and not the platform. Hence, whether content will cause national security or public order issues or not should not be allowed to be determined by the platforms." The government further alleged that Twitter is a "habitual non-compliant" platform and the instant petition is nothing but an attempt to challenge the compliance mandated under law."Many blocking directions that were issued over a period time (some of which more than a year) were belatedly complied by the Petitioner...The Petitioner deliberately remained non-compliant and defiant to the laws of the land. Only on the diligent follow up of the Respondent No.2 and upon the issuance of show cause notice dated 27.06.2022 the Petitioner for reasons best known to it suddenly complied with all the blocking directions and then has challenged blocking directions for specific set of 39 URLs," the reply affidavit states.Background: In June, MeitY had served Twitter a letter setting out serious consequences of non-compliance of blocking orders issued under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, including initiation of criminal proceedings against its Chief Compliance Officer. One last opportunity was granted to the company to comply with MeiTY's orders, with a warning that further delay would lead to Twitter losing its safe harbor immunity as available to it under Section 79(1) of the IT Act. Consequently, in July, the company approached the High Court contending that several blocking orders issued by the Indian government are "procedurally and substantially deficient of the provision" and "demonstrate excessive use of powers and are disproportionate". Twitter claimed that the said Blocking Orders are either disproportionate, arbitrary or fail to provide notice to the originators of the content. Moreover, several could pertain to political content that is posted by official handles of political parties and thus, blocking of such information would be a violation of the freedom of speech guaranteed to citizen-users of the platform. The Court had then granted some time to the Centre to file its response and the case is slated to be heard on September 8.Meanwhile, the following grounds have been urged by the Centre: Petition not maintainable At the outset, Centre has contended that the remedy of writ (of any nature) as provided under Article 226 or 32 of the Constitution is not available to a 'foreign commercial entity' which has merely been allowed to conduct its business operations (only for commercial profits) in India. "The petitioner is neither a citizen of India, nor is a natural person; dehors the above, the petitioner is not even claiming a derivative right of any of its shareholder (an Indian citizen) to invoke the Constitutional remedy of Article 226 of this Hon'ble Court to seek the nature of reliefs as claimed in the present petition. As such for this reason alone the present writ petition is liable to be dismissed." It is also claimed that present petition is camouflaged as petition invoking administrative non-compliance, however, on piercing the façade of pleading, it becomes evident that what petitioner is seeking, in guise, is protection of information and data made available on its platform by third party from being removed by government authorities in exercise of their statutory powers. The reply says, "Behind the administrative façade set up in the present petition, in pith and substance, is seeking to defend Article 19 (1) (a) rights of its users. It is submitted that the petitioner, being a foreign entity per se does not have any Part III rights. The only statutory right it has is conferred to it under Section 79 of the IT Act, 2000, which does not empower it to solicit hosting or defend removal of the information & data of third party hosted on its platform on the ground of violation of article 19, 14 and 21. The intermediary as per the scheme of the IT Act has no right or locus, at all, to take up the case of its users against any orders passed by the competent authority under section 69A of the Act or else it loses its safe harbour protection." Accounts blocked are unverified: Centre claims that the accounts sought to be blocked by it are unverified accounts and there is no evidence to show whether the said accounts are operated by citizens of India. The reply...

Twitter Habitually Non-Compliant, Can't Decide What Content Will Threaten National Security: Centre Opposes Plea Against Blocking Orders

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