X, formerly Twitter, complies with India's fresh account blocking orders under protest

This marks the second run-in that the platform has had with the Indian government ever sine Elon Musk took over the platform in 2022

Micro-blogging platform X (formerly Twitter) on February 22 said that it will withhold, under protest, specific accounts and posts in India based on blocking orders issued by government, signaling the latest episode in an ongoing dispute between the social media giant and the Indian government.

"In compliance with the orders, we will withhold these accounts and posts in India alone; however, we disagree with these actions and maintain that freedom of expression should extend to these posts," the official Global Government Affairs account of X said in a post.

This clarification from X comes after many users pointed out that several accounts covering the ongoing farmers protests in India had been blocked in the country. The platform said that it had received executive orders requiring it to act on specific accounts and posts, and that non-compliance may lead to penalties including fines and imprisonment.

Traditionally, take down orders in India are issued under Sec 69A of the IT Act, which says that the Central government can issue blocking orders to platforms in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of the country, security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, and so on.

"Consistent with our position, a writ appeal challenging the Indian government's blocking orders remains pending. We have also provided the impacted users with notice of these actions in accordance with our policies," the platform said.

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"Due to legal restrictions, we are unable to publish the executive orders, but we believe that making them public is essential for transparency. This lack of disclosure can lead to a lack of accountability and arbitrary decision-making," X, further said in the post on the platform.

In August 2023, Elon Musk-owned X appealed the High Court of Karnataka’s Rs 50 lakh penalty levied on the platform and its decision to dismiss a 2022 plea challenging a few blocking orders by the Indian government.

This marked X’s first confrontation with the Indian government since Musk took ownership of the micro-blogging platform. Musk had earlier said that India’s social media rules were “quite strict” and violating them may result in X’s employees getting arrested.

Specifically, in the appeal, X contested the court's decision to uphold the blocking of 29 accounts and adjudging that 33 URLs fell within the ambit of Section 69A(1) of the IT Act. It has also asked the court to set aside the Rs 50 lakh penalty, which X said is “unjustifiably imposed,” they added

It is also important to note that in 2023, X stopped sharing takedown notices issued by the Indian government with Lumen Database, a website that collects and analyses legal complaints and requests for removal of online material.

"As of April 15th, 2023, Twitter has not submitted copies of any of the takedown notices it receives to Lumen. According to Lumen's persons of contact there, Twitter's 3rd party data sharing policies are under review, and they will update Lumen once there is more information," Lumen Database had said then.