Musk's X withholds certain political posts despite 'disagreeing' with EC takedown order

Social media platform X said on Tuesday it withheld some posts in India containing political speech from elected politicians, political parties, and candidates for office after the Election Commission ordered their takedown.

Elon Musk-owned X said it disagreed with the election commission's orders.

"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. In compliance with the orders, we have withheld these posts for the remainder of the election period; however, we disagree with these actions and maintain that freedom of expression should extend to these posts and political speech in general," X said in a statement.

"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," the statement continued.

India will set off on the world's largest electoral exercise on Friday.