Bengaluru: Billionaire Elon Musk’s social media company X Corp has filed a petition in the Karnataka High Court against the government of India, questioning what it terms “unlawful content regulation and arbitrary censorship.” The social media site is challenging the government’s reading of Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, saying it sets up a system of unregulated censorship that deprives statutory protections.
X argues in its petition that the government is misusing Section 79(3)(b) to order takedowns without adhering to the procedures laid out under Section 69A, which the Supreme Court in the 2015 Shreya Singhal case acknowledged was the sole correct legal procedure for blocking content online. Proper blocking of content, the company argues, calls for written reasons, pre-decision hearings, and the ability to challenge decisions in a court of law.
A core issue in the petition is the Sahyog Portal, run by the Ministry of Home Affairs, which supposedly enables state police and other government departments to issue takedown notices without due process. X Corp. has resisted the need to nominate a ‘Nodal Officer’ for compliance with directions issued via this portal on the grounds that such a requirement has no statutory basis.
This legal move arrives as the Indian government is also reviewing X’s AI chatbot Grok over its offending remarks, such as the application of Hindi slang terms and abuse. The Information Technology Ministry is contacting X about it and looking into the reasons for such remarks.
X’s petition is a follow-up to an earlier challenge in 2022, when the company objected to Section 69A takedown orders for being non-transparent and infringing on free speech guarantees. The latest case has its next hearing fixed for March 27, 2025.
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