Billionaire Elon Musk’s X approached the Karnataka High Court and filed a case against the Centre for using the IT Act to block content on the micro-blogging site.
In its petition, X has challenged the Centre’s definition of the content as unlawfully regulated and arbitrarily censored.
As per news agency PTI, the micro-blogging site raised objection to the interpretation of the Information Technology (IT) Act, especially of its Section 79 (3) (b) which the site mentioned as undermining free online expression and violating the Supreme Court’s rulings.
The micro-blogging site alleged that the Centre created a parallel mechanism to block the content using Section 79 (3) (b). It alleged in its plea that the government has overlooked the structural legal process termed in Section 69A.
Section 69A allows the government to direct social media sites to remove content over national security and sovereignty. On the other hand, the companies argue that Section 79 (3)(b) is vague, and puts them in a station of confusion on illegal content, and it led them to face a lawsuit.
Social sites often use 69A in their defense arguing that they are only liable if the government asks them to remove the content instead of guessing and fixing the definition of illegal content.
