X Corp: X Corp deposited half the fine in the takedown case, informed Karnataka High Court

Microblogging site X Corp (previously Twitter) is noteworthy that on August 10, the Karnataka High Court had ordered X Corp to deposit half the fine amount (i.e. Rs 25 lakh) within seven days. This fine was imposed on the company for not following the orders of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).

In fact, the company had challenged the single judge's order of June 30 to deposit Rs 50 lakh by August 14. After which the division bench, while hearing the petition on August 10, had directed the company to allow appeal and deposit half the amount of the fine to show its authenticity.

Earlier, while hearing the case, a single bench of the Karnataka High Court had rejected the petition of X Corp which had challenged the Central Government's order to block some objectionable accounts and tweets on the platform. The court had told the social media company that the government has the power to issue blocking orders. The court had also imposed a fine of Rs 50 lakh on Twitter. However, in its decision dated August 10, 2023, the court had stayed this fine but ordered the company to deposit 50 percent of it within seven days.

Twitter had filed a petition in the Karnataka High Court against the take down orders issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). Twitter had approached the High Court in June 2022 challenging the directions issued by the government to remove tweets, accounts and URLs on its social media platform.

In the petition, Twitter had claimed that the Center was required to issue notices to the owners of Twitter handles against whom account blocking orders were issued on Twitter. Twitter had also claimed that it was prevented from giving information about the takedown of these accounts.