Social media user can seek action if their account suspended without a prior notice: says Govt.

Stating that a user can initiate proceedings against a social media platform for suspending his or her account without a prior notice, the Centre on Wednesday told the Delhi High Court that a significant social media intermediary may remove only the unlawful content of the user but not take down the account itself. Only in such cases where the majority of content by a user is unlawful, the extreme step of suspending the account may be taken, the Centre said.

In response to a batch of petitions challenging the suspension of accounts by Twitter and other platforms, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said that such platforms “discharging public functions” are duty bound to ensure that there is no infringement of such rights of citizens. The Centre in its reply equated the suspension of account without prior notice to “depriving an individual citizen” of right to freedom



of expression.

“SSMIs must be held accountable for subjugating and supplanting fundamental rights like the right to freedom of speech and expression, otherwise the same would have dire consequences for any democratic nation. It is humbly submitted that liberty and freedom of any individual cannot be waylaid or jettisoned in the slipstream of social and technological advancement,” said the Centre in the reply.

The stand taken by the government is in contrast with its stand in January 2020 in response to Senior Advocate Sanjay Hegde’s petition seeking restoration of his Twitter account. The issue prima facie is between him and Twitter, the Centre had said then while declaring itself to be “neither a necessary nor a proper party to the proceeding”. However, the IT Rules 2021, which has put additional responsibility on social media platforms, had not been notified.