Indian Court Dismisses Elon Musk’s X Case Against Govt’s Online Censorship Powers
Indian Court Dismisses Elon Musk’s X Case Against Govt’s Online Censorship Powers
The full judgment has not yet been made public, and X has not confirmed whether it intends to appeal the ruling, according to the BBC.
The Karnataka High Court has dismissed a case filed by Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, which had challenged the Indian government’s alleged use of a federal portal to arbitrarily censor online content.
A single-judge bench ruled on Wednesday that X’s petition against the Sahyog portal, operated by the Ministry of Home Affairs, was “without merit.”
The full judgment has not yet been made public, and X has not confirmed whether it intends to appeal the ruling, according to the BBC.
The decision marks the second major setback for the platform in just over two years as it contests India’s sweeping powers to order content removal, a development that digital rights advocates fear could further weaken online free speech protections.
Prateek Waghre, a technology policy researcher, described the ruling to the BBC as “worrisome” and said it had “legitimised the act of various government agencies directly sending takedown orders to social media companies.”
He added that the “full import” of the order would only be clear once the written judgment is available.
X’s legal team declined immediate comment.
The BBC said it had reached out to India’s home and information technology ministries for a response.
X filed the case in March, describing Sahyog as a “censorship portal” that enables government officers to issue takedown orders outside established rules, which require hearings and opportunities for review.
In its petition, the company warned that the system allowed “countless” officials, including “tens of thousands of local police officers,” to “unilaterally and arbitrarily” order content removals.
During hearings in July, one of X’s lawyers criticised the system as authorising “every Tom, Dick, and Harry officer” to issue takedown requests, a remark sharply opposed by the government’s counsel.
Unlike Meta, Google, and Amazon, which joined the portal after its launch last year, X refused to register with Sahyog, citing concerns about free expression.
The government, however, defended the platform, saying Sahyog was necessary given the “growing volume of unlawful and harmful content” online.
Officials argued that it merely served to inform social media companies about unlawful material and was not designed as a blocking tool.
In dismissing the case, the Karnataka High Court held that social media “cannot be left in a state of anarchic freedom” and declared that “regulation is a must.”
The judge further described Sahyog as a “public good.”
The court also criticised X’s differing responses to content regulation across jurisdictions, noting that while the company “chooses to follow” takedown orders in the United States, it “refuses to follow…similar takedown orders” in India.
The judge specifically referenced the Take It Down Act passed earlier this year in the U.S., which requires companies to remove intimate images, whether real or AI-generated, within 48 hours of notification.
X has publicly supported that law.
Court filings in the case revealed that government agencies had used Sahyog to demand the removal of content ranging from videos of a deadly crowd crush in Delhi, which killed 18 people, to posts “harming the reputation of prominent public figures,” including the prime minister and home minister.
X has been the only major platform to challenge India’s content-blocking regime, which experts have long criticised as opaque and arbitrary.
In 2022, before Musk acquired the company, X contested several orders to take down tweets and block accounts.
The Karnataka High Court ultimately ruled against the platform and imposed a fine of 5 million rupees ($56,000; £42,000) for delays in compliance. That appeal remains pending.
X is estimated to have about 25 million users in India, one of its largest markets.
