Karnataka HC rejects X plea, backs social media regulation

BENGALURU: Karnataka HC dismissed Wednesday a petition from Elon Musk’s X Corp against content takedowns, ruling that American free speech standards can’t be transplanted into Indian constitutional thought and no global platform can evade the nation’s laws. It said social media is “a modern amphitheatre of ideas” that cannot be left to “anarchic freedom”.”Regulation is a must, more so in cases of offences against women, failing which the right to dignity as ordained in the Constitution gets railroaded,” Justice M Nagaprasanna said. “Unregulated speech under the guise of liberty becomes a licence to lawlessness.” The court held that Art 19(1)(a) of Constitution – free speech and expression – is subject to restrictions under Article 19(2). “Noble in spirit and luminous in promise, it remains nevertheless a charter of rights conferred upon citizens. A petitioner who seeks sanctuary under its canopy must be a citizen of the nation, failing which its protective embrace can’t be invoked,” the judge said, stressing that foreign corporations can’t take refuge under fundamental rights. X Corp had argued that its business model rests on people sharing lawful information and govt’s Sahyog portal functions as an unconstitutional censorship tool. Every sovereign nation regulates social media, India’s resolve not unlawful: HC Karnataka HC rejected the claim, saying the portal is “an instrument of public good, conceived under Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act and Rule 3(b) of the 2021 Rules… a beacon of cooperation between citizens and the intermediary… a mechanism through which the State endeavours to combat the growing menace of cybercrime”. The company abides by takedown laws in the US but resists compliance in India, he said. “The same petitioner refuses to follow the same on the shores of this nation,” he added.The court said the 2015 Shreya Singhal judgment applied to the 2011 IT rules and “is confined to history”, with the 2021 rules demanding “their own interpretative trend, unsided by precedents that address the bygone regime”. Justice Nagaprasanna noted regulated speech preserves both liberty and order, “the twin pillars of democracy”, and warned that “no social media platform in the modern-day agora may even seem the semblance of exemption from the rigour of the discipline of the laws of the land”. He said: “Every sovereign nation regulates it (social media). India’s resolve likewise can’t be branded unlawful.”Rejecting the idea that American jurisprudence on free speech applies in India, the judge pointed to shifts even within the US since Reno vs Civil Liberties Union (1997).