Twitter’s Case in India Could Have Massive Ripple Effects

The Indian government gave a deadline for the removal of some accounts and content from the platform. According to sources familiar with the order, the chief compliance officer could face criminal proceedings for not complying. The company would no longer be protected from liability for the content created by its own users if it lost its "safe harbor" protections. The Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has increased the number of blocking orders in the last 18 months.

The Indian government will be taken to court by the social networking site.

The outcome of the dispute could have major repercussions and serve as a bellwether for this ongoing battle about internet freedom.

Section 69A of India's Information Technology laws are the focus of the lawsuit. The laws that allowed the government to issue blocking orders were passed in 2000. According to sources familiar with the filing, the government's requests are often targeting entire accounts.

The Global Network Initiative executive director said that the lawsuit has implications beyond social media platforms. He said that it will affect all of them. Indian law defines intermediaries as including mobile network operators and internet service providers. Everyone can be seen as a choke point for content restriction or censorship. It could make it harder for platforms and companies to push back if the government were to win in court.

The rules for those earlier powers were put in place around 2010 or 2011. The blocking orders that were received by platforms were not made public in 2009. The rules were criticized for giving all the power to the executive branch. Some of the blocking orders do not meet the government's own standards for establishing why content needs to be removed, and that such orders violate users' rights to free speech.

India's IT laws allow the government to issue blocking orders in secret, making it difficult for individual users to understand why their content is beingcensored. The satirical website www.dowrycalculator.com, owned by journalist Tanul Thakur, was blocked by the government, but he didn't know why. Dowries are illegal in India but persist in many places regardless according to the government. The site was supposed to point out this evil.