The Indian government’s demands to prohibit content on Twitter’s social media platform are being contested in court, according to legal documents cited by local media on Wednesday.
The lawsuit is the most recent confrontation between Twitter and the Indian government, which has been charged with stifling online and offline dissent.
The social media giant said in the court case that the grounds on which several accounts and pieces of information were flagged by the government were either “overbroad and arbitrary” or “disproportionate,” according to the Indian Express daily.
According to sources cited in the publication, the social media giant complained to the Karnataka State High Court that the ministry had not demonstrated how any of the information it wanted to be removed violated IT regulations.
Last week, Twitter said that India had asked it to filter accounts and dozens of posts domestically, some of which discussed the waning internet freedom in the largest democracy in the world.
Others belonged to accounts run by the Pakistani government, which infuriated Islamabad.
The Indian government and Twitter both refused to respond to the court case.
The Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pushed to exert tighter control over social media content in India, where Twitter has over 20 million users, in recent years.
To read our blog on “PTA took the issue of blocking Pakistani mission accounts in India to the Twitter,” click here.
