Karnataka HC dismisses Twitter’s plea
The Karnataka High Court on Friday dismissed Twitter’s objections to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s orders asking the social media platform last year to block certain accounts and delete certain tweets critical of the Union government, saying the government was well within its rights to do it.
Twitter’s plea challenging the Union government’s orders asking it to block handles and delete tweets related to the Khalistan movement, farmers’ protests and the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic was dismissed by Karnataka High Court on Friday, June 30.
Justice Krishna S Dixit of the single-judge bench stated that the government has the power to block tweets and accounts.
The court additionally imposed a fine of Rs 50 lakh on the company, ordering it to pay within 45 days.
Twitter had claimed that as per Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, the account holders had to be informed about taking down their tweets and accounts, but no notice was issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to these account holders.
The Karnataka HC judgment comes just a few weeks after Twitter’s ex-CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey accused the government of threatening to shut down the social media platform in the country unless it complied with orders to restrict accounts critical of the handling of farmers’ protests in 2021, a charge which the government had called a “lie”.
