New Delhi: The Karnataka High Court has also fined social media platform Twitter by rejecting its application. Twitter had moved the High Court against the Centre’s order to block certain social media accounts and tweets. The High Court rejected the application of the microblogging site and imposed a fine of Rs 50 lakh.
- Last year, Twitter challenged the Centre’s order in the High Court, but the Karnataka High Court upheld the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s order issued under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act.
The Karnataka High Court upheld the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology order issued under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act. The court dismissed the petition filed by Twitter saying that the government has the power to issue the blocking order. The High Court has imposed a fine of 50 lakh rupees on Twitter. The company has been ordered to pay the State Legal Services Authority within 45 days.
Twitter challenged the High Court’s order
Last year, Twitter had challenged the orders issued to it by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act. The Center asked Twitter to freeze and block several social media accounts and tweets between February 2021 and February 2022. Of these, Twitter challenged 39 blocking orders.
What is the whole matter?
Twitter filed a petition in the Karnataka High Court against the down order issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). Twitter had approached the High Court in June 2022 challenging the government’s directive to remove tweets, accounts and URLs from its social media platform.
During the hearing of the petition in 2022, Twitter told the High Court that the reasons for blocking the account should be in the order issued by the Centre. The company also insisted on establishing a standard so that orders issued under Section 69A of the IT Act can be challenged if required. On the issue, the Center told the High Court that Twitter has been a “generally non-compliant platform” for many years. The Indian government said there were about 50 meetings between the government and Twitter representatives before the blocking order was issued. The Center also told the court that ‘Twitter had a clear intention not to comply with the laws of the country’.