New Delhi: Organisations working on digital rights and policies have extended support to X Corp’s petition challenging the use of Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act for content removal, businessline reported.
The Elon Musk-owned platform has moved the Karnataka high court challenging the Union government’s use of Section 79 to pass content blocking orders.
Section 79(3)(b) removes safe harbour protection for intermediaries if they fail to take down content flagged by the government.
It has also questioned the use of Sahyog portal for facilitating such orders.
The microblogging platform has alleged that the portal, created by Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), is used in violation of Supreme court instructions and provisions like 69A of the IT Act that specifically deals with blocking orders.
X Corp has also asked the court to prevent the government from taking action against it for not registering on the Sahyog portal.
Prasanth Sugathan, Legal Director at SFLC.In, told businessline that Section 79(3)(b) is not a standalone provision for takedown actions and must be read alongside Section 69A.
About the portal, Sugathan said, “On Sahyog portal, you cannot have mechanisms that are not provided in the rules. Rules say you need to have a compliance officer. You cannot add new mechanisms to this unless it is incorporated in the rules.”
Calling the portal a “parallel censorship system”, Apar Gupta, founder of the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), argued that the portal lacks transparency, and is not required under the safe harbour framework.
“The mandate for participation in the portal is not required under the due diligence requirement for safe harbor protection. Further, the portal may act as a proxy to overstep the bounds of the existing content website blocking powers considering there is no transparency as to which authorised agencies may be part of the system and can submit requests for takedown,” said Gupta.
Pranesh Prakash, principal consultant at Anekaanta Advisory and co-founder of the Centre for Internet and Society, also said that Section 79 alone does not grant the government any power to block content.
Gangesh Verma, Principal Associate for Tech and Policy at Saraf and Partners, pointed out that the portal was created after the government was questioned on its handling of cybercrimes. ““Late last year in December, the High Court had pulled up the government and asked what they were doing with regards to cybercrime. The I4C then came up with the solution that these things need to be coordinated better and faster, and so it created the Sahyog portal. Now, the portal and I4C do not have statutory backing. This is a body that was created through executive action by the Ministry of Home Affairs. So, you will not be able to source the exact power under which I4C has created Sahyog, nor can you say whether you will not be able to find the exact provision,” he told the paper.
