What you need to know about the latest Centre vs Twitter spat

Twitter says Centre's threat to invalidate its immunity under the IT Act does not 'stand the test of grounds under the law'

The Union government and Twitter are once again at loggerheads over compliance to Indian rules and orders as the government ordered the microblogging site to take down certain content within India.

Here's what you need to know about it:

What is the issue about?

The Twitter vs Centre issue revolves around topics of freedom of speech on the internet. The Centre had on June 28 directed Twitter to locally censor accounts and dozens of posts, including some referring to a report that mentioned India's "declining internet freedoms".

Last year the government ordered Twitter to take down tweets by the US think-tank Freedom House that had discussed the "detention" of Indian citizens for questioning government policies on social media, and the use of internet shutdowns to "stifle dissent".

Also read: Twitter removes filmmaker Leena Manimekalai’s 'Kaali' poster tweet

What order led to the spat between the Centre and Twitter?

A day after issuing the takedown order, the government had on June 29 issued a notice to Twitter to comply with all its past orders by July 4.

"A notice was issued on June 29 to Twitter to comply with all government orders issued till date. Twitter was issued notices earlier this month but it did not comply with it. This is the final notice," a government source told PTI.

“It is everyone’s responsibility to abide by the laws passed by the country’s parliament,” Ashwini Vaishnaw, minister of electronics and information technology, said at a news conference, urging Twitter to comply with the rules.

What happens if Twitter fails to comply?

The MeitY threatened serious consequences for non-compliance, including, but not limited to, initiating criminal proceedings against Twitter's Chief Compliance Officer, and granted a "last opportunity" to comply with a series of blocking orders which are issued under the Section 69A of India's IT Act.

The letter also threatened that failing to do so would cause Twitter to lose its safe harbour immunity as available to it under Section 79(1) of the IT Act.

What was Twitter's response?

Twitter has moved the Karnataka High Court against the takedown order, claiming that the content blocking orders from the IT Ministry do not pass "the test of the grounds provided under Section 69A of the IT Act".

Twitter has alleged in its writ petition that multiple accounts and content included in the blocking orders are "overbroad and arbitrary", fail to provide notice to the "originators" of the content, and are "disproportionate" in several cases.

The social media platform alleged in the court petition that several blocking orders that were issued to Twitter only "cite" the grounds of Section 69A but fail to demonstrate how the content falls within those grounds or how the said content is "violative" of Section 69A, the sources told PTI..

According to the writ petition, account-level blocking is a "principally disproportionate measure" and "violates rights of users under the constitution, especially when the reasons stated to block URLs and reasons stated to block an account lack specificity and merely cite grounds under Section 69A".

New Delhi has accused Twitter of deliberately ignoring new IT rules -- which critics fear could be used to silence dissent -- that came into force in May 2021.

How has Twitter and Centre's relationship on blocking accounts fared?

The microblogging site and the Central government have had a frosty relationship even before the new IT rules came into force in May 2021.

In February 2021, the company permanently blocked more than 500 accounts and moved an unspecified number of others from view within India after the government accused them of making inflammatory remarks about Modi. Twitter said at that time that it was taking no action on the accounts of journalists, politicians and activists, saying it did not believe the orders to block them “are consistent with Indian law.”

In May of that year, police raided Twitter’s offices after the company decided to label tweets by politicians from the BJP as “manipulated media.” Those tweets attacked opposition members who had been using the platform to criticise Modi and what they called his government’s stumbling response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Are other platforms also pushing back against the Centre?

Twitter’s suit follows separate legal action by WhatsApp also pushing back against the country’s stringent new rules involving the internet, which WhatsApp has described as "oppressive".

How did experts respond to the spat?

“It is telling how an international report about India’s press freedom rankings is responded to with censorship, rather than debate and discussion,” said Apar Gupta, executive director of the Internet Freedom Foundation, The New York Times said. “It is an undemocratic and authoritarian response.”

Lawyers and technology experts say Twitter and other social media companies are caught between a rock and a hard place. They are required to comply with the country’s laws but they are also challenging them to uphold freedom of speech in the world’s largest democracy.

“I think they are fighting a losing battle, because on the one hand, they’re taking the government to the courts, but on the other hand, they tend to cave in,” said Salman Waris, a lawyer at TechLegis in New Delhi who specialises in international technology law.

(With inputs from agencies)