Twitter said to challenge India order on content

NEW DELHI — Twitter on Tuesday challenged the Indian government in court over its recent orders to take down some content on the social media platform, media outlets reported.

The lawsuit was filed in the Karnataka High Court in southern Bengaluru city and comes after the Indian government in February warned company executives of criminal action if they failed to comply with the takedown orders, the Press Trust of India and the Bar and Bench legal news site reported.

A Twitter spokesperson, Aditi Shorewal, declined to comment or specify what type of content the company was told to block.

She did not confirm that Twitter had filed the lawsuit.

The lawsuit is part of a growing confrontation between Twitter and New Delhi after the Indian government last year passed a new set of sweeping regulations giving it more power to police online content.

The new rules require companies to erase or block content that authorities deem unlawful.

Under the laws, employees of social media websites and technology firms can be held criminally liable for failing to comply with the government’s orders.

“It is everyone’s responsibility to abide by the laws passed by the country’s Parliament,” India’s IT minister, Ashwini Vaishnaw, said Tuesday when asked about the lawsuit.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has sought for years to control social media and has often directed Twitter to take down tweets or accounts that appear critical of his party and administration.

Twitter complied with most of those orders in the past but also resisted others and has called the new rules a “potential threat to freedom of expression.”