The Government of India has criticised Elon Musk’s X, the platform previously known as Twitter, for labelling centre’s ‘Sahyog Portal’ as a “censorship portal,” according to a Reuters report.
The website launched by the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is designed to notify technology companies—like X—of harmful online content, has become a bone of contention in the ongoing dispute between X and the Indian government at a time when Musk gears to bring its marquee ventures, Starlink and Tesla, to the country.
“The use of the said terminology by a worldwide portal like X is unfortunate and condemnable,” the Ministry of Information Technology was quoted as saying in response to X’s lawsuit in the Karnataka High Court, filed on March 5. The rejoinder—reportedly seen by Reuters—goes on to dismiss X’s claims as a “groundless concern of censorship.”
The government argues that the Sahyog Portal is built simply to notify social media platforms about their obligations of due diligence required under Indian law and not to block them.
Musk’s X alleges that the portal gives “countless” government officials the authority to suppress online content without any checks in place. The platform calls it a censorship tool without proper legal oversight that puts pressure on firms like itself into removing content without proper legal oversight.
X has further accused the government of misinterpreting Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology (IT) Act and exploiting it to make a parallel content-blocking system. All this undermines free expression online and is a threat to the safe harbour mechanisms under Section 79(1), which shield tech platforms from any liability for user-generated content, per X.
The platform creates “an impermissible parallel mechanism” that causes “unrestrained censorship of information in India,” X’s lawsuit says.
Per the government, the Sahyog Portal streamlines takedown requests and streamlines coordination with companies.