Twitter has launched a lawsuit against the Indian government for strict internet legislation

Twitter is filing a lawsuit in India to challenge the country’s strict internet laws. Twitter has had to take content offline several times from local authorities, and according to Twitter, some of these requests infringe on free speech.

Twitter wants the court in India to look into the legitimacy of government requests to take content offline. According to Reuters, Twitter having trouble taking it offline of the content, because those in power in the country would abuse the strict internet laws. This would be against freedom of expression.

Since the introduction of stricter internet legislation, Twitter has had to take messages offline several times and also remove accounts that would violate the law. Twitter should have removed accounts openly supporting an independent Sikh state. The platform also had to remove criticism from farmers about the government’s covid policy.

The American company has been at odds with the Indian government for some time and previously refused to cooperate in taking content offline. Under pressure, Twitter eventually complied with the authorities’ demands, because otherwise the social media platform might be completely banned.

The Indian government declined to comment on questions from Reuters. India says it had to introduce the stricter rules because the fundamental rights of citizens were at stake. Not only social media platforms must adhere to strict rules, other internet services have also been subject to increasingly stricter controls by the Indian government in recent years. For example, services must retain more data from their users and store it longer. For this reason, several VPN services have already left the country.