X Sues Goi for Using It Act to Block Content – ‘Government of India is blocking through IT Act …’, Elon Musk’s X in Karnataka High Court – Elon Musk X Sues Indian Government for Using Its Content

Elon Musk -owned social media company ‘X’ (East Twitter) has filed a case against the Government of India in the Karnataka High Court. The company has argued that arbitrary use of the IT Act to block the content on its platform by the central government is damaging its functioning capacity in the country and unwanted censorship is being produced.

The social media platform has argued in its petition that the use of Section 79 (3) (B) of the IT Act by the Central Government forms an illegal parallel content-blocking system and it violates the Supreme Court verdict given in the Shreya Singhal case in 2015, stating that the content can be blocked only by following the order or section 69 of the court.

X objected to Section 79 (3) (B) of the IT Act

The X has also sought protection from the court regarding not deploying one of his employees on the Sahyog portal (SAHYOG PORTAL) made by I4C (Indian Cybercrime Coordination Center) to make the orders of Section 79 (3) (B) effective. According to the IT Act, if the social media platform like X does not remove or block the same content even at the behest of the government, then they may have to lose their legal protection.

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The X has stated in its petition that Section 69A of the IT Act allows only specific reasons to block the content in matters related to national security, and it requires a review process. Conversely, Section 79 (3) (B) does not have any clear rules and this allows the section authorities to block the content without proper investigation. The company has said that the section of the IT Act is promoting sensorship in India.

Business damage due to random blocking order

The X says that these actions of the central government are harming its business in India. The company says that it depends on users to share legitimate information, and they fear that such random blocking orders are harming its platform and user’s trust. In the hearing held on March 17, Justice M. Nagprasanna had told the officials of the X company that if the central government takes any serious action against the company, he can return to the court.

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At the same time, the central government has said that no punitive step has been taken against X for refusing to join the cooperation portal. Meanwhile, in its petition, X has also accused the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) of encouraging various ministries, states and police of creating a parallel system to block content. According to the report, X shared examples of blocking orders sent by the Ministry of Railways in February 2024 as evidence in the High Court.