TOUGH CLUCK

Judge Chucks Twitter’s Censorship Lawsuit Against Indian Government

The company accused Narendra Modi’s government of acting “arbitrarily” in taking down critical posts and tweets.

A court in Bangalore this week dismissed a lawsuit brought by Twitter against India’s government seeking to challenge expanded censorship regulations that the company claimed were applied “arbitrarily and disproportionately” to critical online posts. A judge in the Karnataka High Court wrote in an opinion that Twitter had failed to explain why it had delayed compliance with the scope of the new rules, which were passed in 2021. Twitter filed its suit last July after receiving orders to take down hundreds of accounts that the Indian federal government viewed as threatening to its “sovereignty and integrity.” While it complied with the vast majority of the mandate, Twitter resisted blitzing 39 of the accounts, arguing in the lawsuit that the government was seeking to silence critical journalists and opposition politicians. In his opinion, the judge wrote, “So you have not given any reason why you delayed compliance, more than a year of delay… then all of sudden you comply and approach the Court. You are not a farmer but a billion dollar company.” He also fined the social media company the equivalent of $61,000.