Elon Musk’s X takes down posts on ECI’s orders, here’s why

x eci posts

Popular social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) has taken down some posts on the orders of the Election Commission of India. X’s Global Government Affairs team put out a statement on the matter. “The Election Commission of India has issued takedown orders requiring X to act on posts containing political speech shared from elected politicians, political parties and candidates for office,” said X.

The social media platform said that the posts have been withheld for the remainder of the election period. However, X made it clear that while it has taken down the posts, it disagrees with the takedown orders. “We disagree with these actions and maintain that freedom of expression should extend to these posts and political speech in general,” said X.

The EC's directives, disclosed by X, highlight specific posts that violate the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). These posts, as per the emails posted by X sent by ECI nodal officer, violate certain provisions under MCC, like prohibiting criticism of the private lives of candidates or leaders and the sharing unverified allegations.

X revealed the posts that have been taken down, include some from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), YSR Congress and Telugu Desam Party President N Chandrababu Naidu, as well as Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and state BJP president Samrat Choudhary.

On April 2, the EC requested the removal of one post each from the YSRCP and Naidu for violating MCC guidelines. Similarly, separate requests on April 2 and April 3 were made for the removal of posts by the AAP and Choudhary, citing violations of the same MCC provisions.

“We have notified the affected users and in the interest of transparency, we are publishing the takedown orders here. We call on the Election Commission to publish all of its takedown orders going forward,” said X in the post.

Also read: Elon Musk wants these users to pay to post, reply on X

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