Social media platform X calls enforcement of content takedown a 'textbook example of arbitrariness'

Decisions on what online content should be blocked cannot be left to the 'whims and fancies' of individual government officers, social media platform X Corp (formerly Twitter) told the Karnataka High Court on July 7, adding that the current enforcement regime is a 'textbook example of arbitrariness'.

Appearing for the company, senior advocate KG Raghavan asked the court to strike down Rule 3(1)(d) of the Information Technology Rules, 2021, and to curtail the government’s use of Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act to issue content takedown orders.

Raghavan said that the government’s use of Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act, particularly through the Sahyog portal, resulted in thousands of nodal officers across the country independently deciding what content should be taken down, with no consistency or central oversight.

“This is a classic example of how Article 14 is violated,” Raghavan told the court. “You have nodal officers in different states, acting on their own sense of what is lawful and what isn’t. There’s no coordination. There’s no centralised process. It is governed by the whims and fancies of whoever is issuing the order.”