Ruling in favor of blocking should not be the last word on social media law

It is unfortunate that the petition by Twitter, Inc. challenging the validity of the spate of blocking orders passed by the Union government was rejected by the Karnataka High Court. While success in litigation involving the government’s power to restrict speech and expression on grounds permitted in Article 19(2) of the Constitution was always expected to be difficult, it is disconcerting that the court refused to countenance all arguments based on the absence of notice to users and the apparent lack of proportionality involved in large-scale suspension of accounts and posts that contained political content, especially dissenting views against the government’s farm laws and the farmers’ protests they sparked. There was some expectation that judicial review will temper the authorities’ zeal to go in for account-level blocking rather than ordering the removal of specific tweets, links or URLs that it deemed injurious to public order or national security. What is quite disappointing is that the court both ruled that Twitter cannot espouse the cause of its users who have voiced no grievance and discouraged an intervenor from among those who suffered account-level suspension. It ruled that a foreign entity such as Twitter could not invoke the constitutional guarantee of free speech and expression on behalf of users. In the ultimate rebuff to the platform, the court imposed costs of ₹50 lakh for indulging in much-delayed “speculative litigation” despite not complying with the blocking orders for a long period and then doing so only under protest.

There is little doubt that social media content can degenerate into incitement, hate speech and hostile propaganda against the state or its instrumentalities. Laws exist in most countries to order intermediaries such as social media platforms and Internet service providers to remove any offending content, but it is a common principle that established democracies should frame policies and regulations rooted in fairness and natural justice, and not impose undue curbs on freedom of speech and expression. Section 69A of the IT Act, which sets out the power to issue blocking orders, was upheld by the Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal (2015) mainly on the ground that it came with adequate procedural safeguards. Twitter argued that lack of notice to the originators of content and the account users was in breach of that verdict. The court has ruled that issuing notice to users was not mandatory, especially when they may not be identifiable. Conclusions such as this, and the wide berth given to authorities to opt for account-level blocking may require reconsideration. A definitive verdict from the Supreme Court may be needed to clarify both the rights and obligations of large media companies in relation to user-generated content.
(The Hindu)