‘The freedom and independence of no man can be tied in the slippery of technological progress’
‘The freedom and independence of no man can be tied in the slippery of technological progress’
The Center on Wednesday told the Delhi High Court that social media platforms “should be held accountable for subjugating and suppressing fundamental rights like the right to freedom of speech and expression, otherwise there would be dire consequences for any democratic nation”. .
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) said in an affidavit, “It is humbly submitted that the freedom and independence of any individual cannot be forfeited in the slippery days of social and technological progress.”
The ministry’s request came in response to a petition filed by a Twitter user whose account was suspended by the microblogging site for alleged violation of platform guidelines.
The Twitter user said that his account was suspended on February 24, 2022 due to “ban evasion” (creating an account when a similar account was previously banned). The complainant said that Twitter suspended his account without giving him an opportunity of being heard.
The Center said that when an important social media intermediary (SSMI) like Twitter decides to suspend the whole or part of a user’s account “on its own accord” for violation of its policy, it should give a reasonable opportunity to the user. Defend your side.
Exceptions, the Center said, where SSMI can take such a decision include “certain scenarios such as rape, sexually explicit material or child sexual abuse material, bot activity or malware, terrorism related material etc”.
“If any SSMI fails to comply with the above, it may be in violation of IT Rules 2021,” the Center said.
‘Rights must be respected’
It said that social media platforms should respect the fundamental rights of citizens and should not terminate the account itself or completely suspend the user account in all cases. “Take down the entire information or user account should be the last resort,” it added.
“Only in cases where most of the content/posts/tweets of an account are illegal, the platform may take the extreme step of deleting the entire information or suspending the entire account,” the Center said.
“No forum or arbitrator shall be permitted to infringe upon the rights of citizens, including those guaranteed under Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India, under the guise of violation of the policies of the Forum, unless it is in contravention of the existing law .force,” the Center reminded the social media platform.