Have right to suspend any account that violates terms: Twitter to high court
The company, in response to a plea by senior advocate Sanjay Hegde challenging the suspension of his Twitter account, said that its services are “purely in the nature of a voluntary service” which it “provides to its users in a commercial capacity”.
Social media firm Twitter on Thursday told the Delhi high court that it can suspend the account of any individual user found in breach of their service agreement, and that it has a “contractual obligation” to do so.
The company, in response to a plea by senior advocate Sanjay Hegde challenging the suspension of his Twitter account, said that its services are “purely in the nature of a voluntary service” which it “provides to its users in a commercial capacity”.
The social media intermediary also said there was no element of public function involved, and it was not obligated to render its service to further the freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under the Indian Constitution.
“…the provision of services on Twitter is pursuant to a contractual obligation which the petitioner (Hegde) has signed up for, and the said contract gives Respondent No 2 (Twitter) the right to suspend an account if it is in violation of the user agreement and its policies. This shows that Respondent No 2 is merely discharging its contractual obligations,” Twitter said in an affidavit filed on Wednesday.
“…the provision of service of Twitter is in no matter relatable to any function of the State carried out in its sovereign capacity; Its service is not in any manner a State protected monopoly, since there are multiple other such service providers which are intermediaries discharging similar functions,” the reply added.
It also said that its services extended beyond the territorial boundaries of India, and it cannot be said that the platform owed a duty to the Indian public to facilitate free speech and expression.
“For any activity to be classified as a public duty, it is necessary that a positive obligation is cast to discharge that duty. Efforts which are purely voluntary cannot be said to have the necessary public element in them,” Twitter told the high court.
In December 2019, Hegde moved the high court challenging the permanent suspension of his account --“@sanjayuvacha”, from November 5, 2019 — alleging that the move was “arbitrary”, illegal as contrary to Twitter’s rules.
According to the petition, Hegde’s account was suspended for allegedly re-tweeting two posts on the micro-blogging site.
One of the posts was that of Kavita Krishnan, secretary of All India Progressive Women’s Association and member of CPI(ML) politburo who had shared Gorakh Pandey’s poem “Unko phaansi de do” in 2019.
Hegde had re-tweeted the post with the caption “Hang Him”, an English translation of the poem’s title, the plea read.
The second post was a picture of August Landmesser which Hegde was using as his profile header/ cover photo for over a year.
The plea also contended that the suspension of account was a violation of his right to free speech and expression guaranteed by Article 19 (1) (a)of the Indian Constitution.
Advocate Pranjal Kishore, appearing for Hegde, sought directions to the Centre to frame guidelines to ensure that online speech is not arbitrarily censored by social media firms such as Twitter. He also sought restoration of the account.
The petitioner argued that since Twitter imparts a public function, which is being a social media platform, facilitating the exchange of information and ideas, the plea was maintainable.
Opposing this stand, Twitter said that its services were covered under the Information Technology Rules, and there was a mechanism provided under it, in case a user is aggrieved by any act or omission by an intermediary.
Twitter has been in the eye of controversy over the past few months. On May 20, it labelled a tweet by Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Sambit Patra “manipulated media” prompting a Delhi Police investigation. The special cell of Delhi Police questioned Manish Maheshwari, managing director of Twitter in India, in late May.
The company then missed a May 25 deadline to comply with the new guidelines for intermediaries and social media firms, and an official in the IT ministry previously told HT that the company would lose the protection it enjoyed as an intermediary under the country’s IT law as a result.
The Ghaziabad Police has been wanting to question Maheshwari over a video clip that went viral last month. The police believe Twitter did not do enough to halt the circulation of the clip which they believe misrepresents the nature of an attack on an elderly Muslim man as a communal hate crime. The Karkataka high court gave the Twitter executive protection from arrest and told the Ghaziabad Police that they could question him virtually, a ruling that has since been challenged in the Supreme Court.
“Respondent No 2 (Twitter), in accordance with the IT Act and applicable rules has a grievance redressal mechanism and the petitioner’s recourse is to file a complaint on the said portal. The petitioner (Hegde), by filing this writ petition, is attempting to give a purely contractual dispute the colour of a public function allegedly being performed by it solely to make it amenable to the writ jurisdiction of the Court,” the reply by the social media firm said.
Senior advocate Pavan Duggal said that even though the two parties are engaged in a contractual obligation, the agreement would not hold water in any court if it is in violation of the laws and the rights guaranteed under the Indian Constitution. If Twitter has suspended any account, then the IT Rules mandate that it has to be transparent and the site must spell out the reason for suspension, he said.
The matter will now heard on August 12.
