Big technology companies have rarely engaged with national governments in court. However, the Indian government’s increasing steps to curb freedom of speech, the right to privacy and digital rights have forced social media companies to fight such draconian measures in court. This time, it is the social media giant Twitter, which is suing the Indian government in Karnataka High Court in Bangalore. The case is a legal challenge against the draconian laws passed in 2021 that extended the Indian government’s censorship powers and gave the government oversight of Twitter and other social media companies.
This is not the first legal challenge that the Indian government is facing. Last year, WhatsApp sued the Indian government in the Delhi High Court due to the Indian government’s attempts to trample on the right to privacy by demanding WhatsApp create “traceable” databases of all messages sent using the service. The suit filed by WhatsApp was ultimately unsuccessful due to the Delhi High Court ruling that the right to privacy was not absolute.
Unfortunately, despite the massive power of giants like Twitter and Meta, it seems like the Modi-led government is intent on infringing upon digital rights and Twitter’s legal challenge will, in likelihood, have the same outcome as WhatsApp’s suit. However, the onus is on these social media companies and international human rights watch and organisations to keep up such resistance, not just through legal avenues, but also diplomatically.
India’s social media laws can essentially lead the state to ban anything and everything it deems objectionable, and the Indian government’s pressure on state institutions is so strong that one cannot expect the Indian Supreme Court to provide a reasonable judicial review to the increasingly fascist line the Modi government is taking. India has a population of more than a billion people; India’s new laws restrict the discourse of digital and privacy rights over the subcontinent and this should not be taken lightly.