X is “falsely alleging that authorities are passing information blocking orders” under Section 79(3)(d) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 in a bid to circumvent a Supreme Court judgement that only allows such orders to be issued under Section 69A of the same law, the Centre said in a statement filed before the Karnataka High Court, opposing X’s petition. File
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The Union Government has told the Karnataka High Court that X Corp, formerly Twitter, is “attempting to mislead the court” about the law used to direct social media platforms to block access to harmful content.
X is “falsely alleging that authorities are passing information blocking orders” under Section 79(3)(d) of the Information Technology Act, 2000 in a bid to circumvent a Supreme Court judgement that only allows such orders to be issued under Section 69A of the same law, the Centre said in a statement filed before the court, opposing X’s petition.
The Centre insisted that Section 79 is a suitably tailored regime, in line with global best practices, which seeks to balance the competing interests of the stakeholders involved, including online content creators, platforms, and internet users, while keeping legitimate State interests in mind.
Only ‘notices’, not ‘blocking orders’
The Centre also made it clear that it was not issuing direct ‘blocking orders’ under Section 79(3) in violation of Section 69A, but was simply notifying platforms of harmful content and warning them of their liability if they ignored such notices.
“Section 79 regime does not envisage any ‘blocking orders’ and merely issues notice informing intermediaries of their due diligence obligations. In case of non-compliance of the notices, the result is lifting of safe harbour protection and consequent action under extant law as per Rule 7 of IT Rules, 2001, and the same is fundamentally at a different plane altogether,” it said.
The Centre also argued that illegal or unlawful content cannot attract the same level of constitutional protection as free speech, while insisting that there is no prohibition or embargo on exercising of freedom of speech and expression, nor is there any pre-publication censorship under Section 79. It also informed the court that there exists no specific judgement from any jurisdiction dealing with the expanding and dangerous menace of unlawful content and its interplay with free speech.
38 IT majors on Sahyog
X Corp is trying to wrongly portray the Sahyog portal used to coordinate and automate such notices as a “censorship” tool, the Centre said, pointing out that 38 top IT intermediaries — including Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Telegram, Apple, Sharechat, Snapchat, LinkedIn, and YouTube — have already come aboard. The portal has been created to ensure a seamless process and cooperation for routing notices lawfully issued by different authorised agencies and branches of government, including by the courts, for the removal of unlawful content.
In fact, Meta Inc., representing Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, is putting in place API-based integration with the Sahyog portal to enable real-time action, the Centre claimed, in its statement.
‘Wrong terminology’
“The petitioner [X Corp] has referred to takedown notices/requests under Section 79 read with Rule 3(1)(d) of IT Rules as ‘blocking orders’ throughout the petition which is completely misguiding and erroneous,” the Centre said.
The company’s claim that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has issued sample ‘template blocking orders’ for the use of State governments and police is also not correct, the Centre said. It pointed out that none of the communications issued under Section 79, either by the MeitY or by the State governments, have used the words “blocking orders”, but have only mentioned “content removal requests/takedown notices”. X “is seeking to obfuscate the issue by using wrong terminology to mislead the court,” the Centre said.
‘Balanced approach’
“Section 79 exemplifies a balanced constitutional approach by carefully negotiating the competing interests of fundamental rights, particularly freedom of speech and expression, and legitimate interests such as national security, public order, and prevention of crime. By exempting intermediaries from liability for third-party content, the provision safeguards the free flow of information and innovation, enabling online platforms to host diverse user-generated content without facing undue legal risk. However, this immunity is conditional, as it requires intermediaries to adhere to due diligence and other obligations,” the Centre has contended.
Noting that the advent of social media platforms brings challenges which may have devastating consequences if not regulated, the Centre said that the legislature of any country will have to evolve its statutory mechanism to protect the fundamental rights of its citizens, depending on several factors.
“Internet space has its own unique features as compared to other mediums of excercise of freedom of speech and expression like print and electronic, like television, etc. There are glaring distinction and differences between the print, television medium and the cyberspace. Hence, the interpretation of the scope, extent, ambit and reasonable restriction, if any, will necessarily differ in the case of different mediums,” the Centre contended.
The petition, in which X Corp has sought a declaration from the court that information ‘blocking orders’ cannot be issued under Section 79, will come up for further hearing on April 3.
Published – March 28, 2025 02:12 pm IST
