A setback for right to free speech

The dismissal by a single-judge bench of the Karnataka High Court of Twitter’s petition challenging the central government’s 2021 orders to take down content from the social media site is a setback to citizens’ right to freedom of speech and expression. The government had issued 39 orders to Twitter to block access to a number of accounts and tweets, and Twitter went to court in July 2022 against the orders.

Many of the tweets and handles were about the farmers’ protest in Delhi the previous year. The court not only dismissed Twitter’s petition but also imposed a fine of Rs 50 lakh on the company. It accepted almost all the arguments of the government and has, in the process, given it almost untrammelled powers to block critical content on social media without any checks.

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Twitter contended that the government’s orders to block not just tweets but entire accounts, and that too indefinitely, were against the law and against the principle of proportionality. The court did not accept it and said the government had power under the Information Technology Act to demand such take-downs. But the question remains why an account should be blocked indefinitely when the objection is only to one post. That amounts to curbing the Twitter user’s freedom. Blocking future content is censorship. The court also did not agree with the view that the user should be informed about the reasons for blocking the content.

The court said the government has the discretion to not give the information to the users as “anti-India campaigners, terrorists, sedition-seekers and foreign adversaries who intend to destabilise India and jeopardise national security on communal lines” do not deserve to be served notices. The Supreme Court had allowed blocking of content under Section 69A of the IT Act on the ground that there were procedural safeguards in the law for it. But a government action that did not follow the normal procedures has been upheld now. That means the safeguards do not exist in practice. The court also punished Twitter for indulging in “speculative litigation”, not complying with the orders in time and doing so under protest. 

It is not known if Twitter will appeal the judgement because its present management is not the management that had filed the case. But the contentious reasoning and conclusions in the judgement will need to be reviewed by the Supreme Court. Important issues relating to the citizen’s right to free speech, the right to be heard, the right to due process and principles like transparency and proportionality of punishment were involved in the case. The judgement has given a carte blanche to the government on these issues.