X May Lose Safe Harbour Protection For Not Deleting Rana Ayyub's Tweets, Says Union Government
The Wire Staff
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New Delhi: The Union government has said to the Delhi high court that X Corp (formerly Twitter) may lose its safe harbour protection in India because it failed to remove journalist Rana Ayyub's tweets that allegedly insult Hindu deities and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.
The government said that X failed to remove the tweets despite receipt of 'actual knowledge' by way of a judicial order as well as statutory notices issued by Delhi Police, LiveLaw has reported.
Section 79 of the IT Act provides safe harbour protection to intermediaries including social media platforms and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from liability for third party content, provided they act as facilitators, follow due diligence and remove unlawful content upon receiving notifications from the government or courts.
“It is apposite to note that such inaction amounts to non-compliance with the due diligence requirements provided for in the applicable Rules and facilitates continues commission of unlawful acts by its user i.e. Rana Ayyub and a consequence thereof the protection of safe harbor available to the intermediary available under Section 79(1) is liable to be withdrawn,” says the Union government's affidavit, filed in a plea by Amita Sachdeva, that alleges the tweets are derogatory, inflammatory and communally sensitive and seeks their deletion.
X has said in its response to the court that it is not "the state" under Article 12 of the Constitution and does not perform a public function that would make it subject to writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.
It has also urged the court to direct the Union government and Delhi Police to follow the procedure laid down under Section 69A of the IT Act to issue a blocking order.
The government responded that such an order has already been initiated under the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009.
Ayyub's six tweets date from 2013 to 2017 and, according to Sachedva, allegedly insult Hindu deities, Savarkar and the Indian Army.
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