Why has Elon Musk's X filed a petition against Centre?

Social media platform X, previously known as Twitter, has moved the Karnataka high court challenging the Indian government’s use of Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act.

Section 79 lays down conditions for an intermediary to claim safe harbour protections from liability for third-party content. Section 79(3)(b) says that such protection is not available if the intermediary fails to remove or disable access upon being informed by the “appropriate” government or “its agency”.

In its plea before the Karnataka high court, X has argued that the provision not only sets up an “illegal parallel content-blocking process” but also violates the Supreme Court’s 2015 Shreya Singhal judgment.

Also read: X approaches HC over Centre using IT Act to block content

The judgment declared that content could only be blocked through a competent court order or under Section 69A’s structured process, which allows the IT ministry to block content if it is deemed a threat to national security, sovereignty or public order.

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X has also argued that this provision does not grant blocking powers to the government and alleged that authorities are misusing this section to bypass the safeguards of Section 69A and arbitrarily censor online content, as reported by Hindustan Times.

X seeks protection over Sahyog portal

Apart from seeking protection from government action on blocking orders violative of Section 69A, X has sought protection for not onboarding an employee on the Sahyog portal, which the social media platform dubbed a “censorship portal.”

The Sahyog portal was created by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) to “streamline” Section 79(3)(b) orders.

In their petition, X said that nothing in the law allows the creation of Sahyog or creates a statutory requirement to appoint a nodal officer for such a portal. It further pointed out that it had already appointed the “requisite officers” as per Information Technology (Intermediate Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

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X argued before the court that the Centre's actions threaten its business model, which rests on people sharing lawful information.

At a hearing on March 17, Justice M Nagaprasanna of the Karnataka high court allowed X to approach the court if the government took any “precipitative action” against it. The government, on its part, has maintained that no punitive measures have yet been taken against X for refusing to join the Sahyog portal.

(Inputs by Aditi Agrawal)