Elon Musk’s X Is “Habitually Non-Compliant” And Disobeying Directions, According To Reports: Government

According to a legal document accessed by Reuters, the Indian government has informed a court that Elon Musk’s X is a “habitual non-compliant platform” and has for years disregarded several requests to remove content, weakening the authority of the government.

The comments were included in a non-public petition made on August 24 by India’s IT ministry to the Karnataka high court, which will soon hear a challenge made by the social networking platform regarding a punishment levied by the government.

X and India’s IT ministry declined to comment when Reuters requested them to.

The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and X, formerly known as Twitter, are engaged in a court spat over what New Delhi claims is non-compliance with material removal orders.

The site was fined 5 million rupees ($60,291) by the Karnataka High Court in June for violating numerous blocking orders without providing a justifiable justification.

Twitter appealed that decision to a higher court bench, arguing that it may give New Delhi more confidence to filter additional information.

Separately, it has asked the court to get involved and stop the fine. The IT ministry argued in its 28-page submission that X’s request should be rejected because the firm had compromised “the role of the government in a democratic setup” and had in the past unlocked some accounts without the government’s knowledge that it had been ordered to be blocked.

According to the ministry’s petition, X’s “compliance rates with government requests have been notably low.” “It is the responsibility of the government to make sure that platforms are operating in a way that complies with the law.”

For many years, there has been tension between India and X. The dispute began in 2021 when the social networking site refused to deactivate several profiles that New Delhi had directed be deleted in connection with agricultural demonstrations against Indian government policies.

Additionally, Indian authorities have requested that the business remove content from accounts that are believed to encourage an independent Sikh state, posts that are seen to have spread false information about farmer demonstrations, and tweets that criticize how the government is treating the COVID-19 outbreak.

Following a case that Twitter brought in 2022, before Musk owned the social media site, to challenge many of India’s content removal orders, the court ruled against Twitter in June.

Since August, X has been seeking a legal challenge to that decision while it is still owned by Musk.

In its most recent court submission, the Indian government claims that by attempting to evaluate the merits of government directives, X is “advocating a dangerous trend” and that, if allowed, would make all platforms the “final arbitrator of lawful orders.”

The ongoing legal battles come as Musk’s Tesla is debating a plan to build an electric vehicle manufacturing in India.