Foreign Social Media – No Fundamental Rights – Karnataka HC favours Government’s Online Oversight
No Fundamental Rights to Foreign Social Media Platforms – Karnataka HC favours Government’s Online Oversight
Foreign Social Media Platforms, Indian Law – Karnataka HC says Article 19 does not apply to X (Twitter)
Social Media Platform – Registration of X (former Twitter) on Sahayog Portal
Sahayog Portal for IT Intermediaries
What once begin with postal riders & printing press, has through centuries of innovation, culminated in today’s boundless digital world.
The platform giving breath to the creator’s voice is the intermediary in the modern digital world.
Therefore, the balance between liberty, free speech and authority & regulation has assumed significance in court litigation in its sharpest form.
In 2006, popular social media platform Twittter was founded for microblogging and real time information sharing. In April 2022, it was acquired by another and re-named as “X Corp”.
In 2021, the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, were framed.
Relying on Rule 3(1)(d) of the Rules, the orders as referred to in para 2.5 of the judgment, are passed authorizing the concerned Ministry to issue take down notices to the intermediaries in relation to any information which is prohibited under any law.
The Indian network subscriber base in 2015 was 25 crores and now in 2025, it is 98 crores of internet subscriber. The wireless data use per subscriber has reached 20.6 GB.
Article 19 is citizen centric and not person centric. American Company cannot come before the Constitutional Court of India for protection of Article 19. The petitioner is not even a person, it is a company.
Today, Algorithms are everywhere, they decide what news you see on social media, how maps guide you through traffic, what prices you pay on e-commerce sites, which job applications pass the first round of screening; it is in health care.
Law enforcement agencies flag algorithms as suspicious, patterns of behaviour.
Algorithms today have become instruments of power, they can amplify voices or silence them, open opportunities or close them, therefore, every alrithm reflects the human hand, it is a human imprint.
The Engineer who writes the code, the policy maker who sets the goal, the Manager who decides to collect the data, are all human beings.
In essence, the algorithms may be new order of the day, but the Constitutional demand is old. Power, whether human or digital, must remain accountable.
The Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009 (for short, Social Media Blocking Rules).
Judgment dated 24.9.2025 of the Karnataka High Court at Bengaluru in Writ Petition No.7405 of 2025 (GM-RES) of X Corp Vs. Union of India and others
