Twitter on Tuesday asked an Indian court to overturn some government orders to remove content from the social media platform, a source familiar with the matter said, in a legal challenge which alleges abuse of power by officials.
The U.S. company’s attempt to get a judicial review of the orders is part of a growing confrontation with New Delhi.
Twitter has been asked by Indian authorities over the past year to act on content, including accounts supportive of an independent Sikh state, posts alleged to have spread misinformation about protests by farmers and over tweets critical of the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, Reuters reported from New Delhi.
India’s IT Ministry did not immediately respond on Tuesday to a request for comment about Twitter’s legal move.
The Indian government has previously said that big social media firms, including Twitter, have not complied with removal requests, despite their legal standing.
Late last month, Twitter was warned by India’s IT ministry of criminal proceedings if it did not comply with some orders. Twitter complied this week, the source said, so as not to lose liability exemptions available as a host of content.
In a filing with the top court (High Court) in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, Twitter argued that some removal orders fell short of the procedural requirements of India’s IT Act, the source said, without specifying which ones it wanted reviewed.
The IT Act allows the government to block public access to content in the interest of national security, among other reasons.
Twitter, which market research firms say has nearly 24 million users in India, also argues in its filing that some of the orders failed to give notice to authors of the content.
It says that some were related to political content posted by official handles of political parties, the blocking of which amount to violation of freedom of speech, the source added.
Tensions with the Indian government flared early last year when Twitter declined to fully comply with an order to take down accounts and posts which New Delhi alleged were spreading misinformation about anti-government protests by farmers.
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