New Delhi: X Corp, which runs the micro-blogging platform X (formerly Twitter), has told the Delhi High Court that it cannot be compelled to come onboard the Union government’s SAHYOG portal, which apparently aims to combat cybercrime, arguing that it “has its own portal to process valid legal requests”, The Hindu reported.
The SAHYOG portal has been developed to bring together authorised agencies and social media intermediaries under one framework “to automate the process of sending notices” to “facilitate the removal or disabling of access to any information, data or communication link being used to commit an unlawful act”.
Pointing to the Supreme Court’s judgement in the Shreya Singal vs. Union of India case, X Corp argued that the portal falls outside the statutory scheme of Section 69A of the IT Act, 2000, which gives the government power to order online platforms to block information in specific circumstances, the daily reported
The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) raised a grievance against X Corp, complaining that the platform failed to respond to past requests for information, including those regarding alleged sexual offences against children, content that amounts to child sexual exploitation and abuse material, it added.
Akhil Sibal, the senior counsel representing X, told the court that the portal would “create a parallel mechanism to the existing mechanism under Section 69A of the IT Act albeit without any procedures or safeguards. Thus, it is stated that X Corp cannot be compelled to come on the SAHYOG portal.”
The US billionaire Elon Musk-owned X, has also filed a petition in the Karnataka High Court challenging the use of Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act for content removal. The petition also questioned the use of SAHYOG portal for facilitating such orders.
Sibal, mentioning this in court, termed it a “censorship” tool.
Notably, according to some media reports, the government has also been ‘in touch’ with X officials regarding the platform’s generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Grok’s responses to users’ political questions and expletive-laden prompts on X.
The Union government has reportedly told X that it needs to follow the law of the land on content takedown requests. The government might also take action against the users posing such questions.
Meanwhile, no formal communication or notice has been sent regarding the issue to the platform yet.
