Elon Musk's X to appeal Karnataka High Court ruling on secretive content removal system ‘Sahyog’

Social media platform X said on Monday it plans to appeal an Indian court order that would allow over two million police officers nationwide to issue arbitrary takedown requests via a secretive online portal called the Sahyog.

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Here's what X said

“We will appeal this order to defend free expression,” X said in a post on the platform, in its first statement since the High Court of Karnataka ruled last week that there was no legal merit to the company's legal challenge to quash India's content removal mechanisms.

"The Sahyog enables officers to order content removal based solely on allegations of “illegality,” without judicial review or due process for the speakers, and threatens platforms with criminal liability for non-compliance," X said on Monday.

X owner Elon Musk, a self-described free-speech absolutist, has clashed with authorities in several countries over compliance and content takedown demands, but the company's Indian lawsuit targeted the entire basis for tightened internet regulation in the world's most populous nation, Reuters reported.

“X vs Centre”

Earlier on September 24, the Karnataka High Court dismissed X Corp's petition challenging the government's content takedown system under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act. The court emphasised that social media, as a “modern amphitheatre of ideas,” should not be allowed to operate in a state of “anarchic freedom” and must be subject to regulation.

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Holding that every sovereign nation regulates social media and that India's action likewise cannot, by any stretch of constitutional imagination, be branded as unlawful, the court said none may presume to treat the Indian marketplace as a mere playground where information can be disseminated in defiance of statutes or disregard for legality.

“Social media needs to be regulated, and its regulation is a must, more so in cases of offences against women in particular, failing which the right to dignity, as ordained in the constitution of a citizen, gets railroaded,” said the single-judge bench of Justice M Nagaprasanna.

“The petitioner’s platform is subject to a regulated regime.”

Section 69 of the IT Act, 2000

Section 69 of the IT Act, 2000 grants the government the power to issue directions to intercept, monitor, or decrypt information from any computer resource in the interest of India's sovereignty, integrity, defense, security, friendly relations with foreign states, or public order, and to prevent incitement to the commission of any cognisable offense or for the investigation of any offense.

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The government also must record reasons for such an order, and the affected intermediary or person in charge of the computer resource must comply and provide necessary assistance.