Social media platform X, owned by Elon Musk, is suing the Indian government, accusing the country’s information technology ministry of illegally expanding its powers to remove online content, Reuters reported on Thursday.
X has long complained about government orders to remove or block content in the country, such as during farmers’ protests last year. While it eventually complied with these orders, citing the risk of significant fines, it also filed a lawsuit. Now it is further strengthening its opposition to state censorship with new lawsuits.
According to X’s lawsuit filed earlier this month, the company accused the Indian government of creating an illegal mechanism through which “countless” government officials can execute orders to remove or block content through a website that social media companies must regularly check.
According to Reuters, X’s lawsuit claims that this mechanism does not comply with India’s legal safeguards for content removal, which require that such orders “be issued in cases such as harm to sovereignty or public order, and … under the strict supervision of senior officials.”
X claims that the website creates an “unacceptable parallel mechanism” that causes “unrestricted censorship of information in India,” according to a news agency report on the lawsuit. The company hopes to use the legal route to overturn the directive, it said.
A brief hearing in the case was held earlier this month, Reuters reported, but no decision was made. The next hearing is expected to take place in the Supreme Court of the southern state of Karnataka next week.
