India : Indian court fined Twitter $61,000 on Friday after dismissing its challenge over orders to remove tweets and accounts critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
The social media platform regularly takes down or blocks content at the request of Indian authorities.
Last year, Twitter said India ranked fourth in the world in the number of requests made by a government to remove content, behind only Japan, Russia and Turkey.
The decision comes weeks after the company’s former chief executive Jack Dorsey said authorities had threatened to “shut down Twitter in India” and raid the homes of its employees if it refused to agree to takedown requests.
The Karnataka state high court in Bengaluru, home to Twitter’s Indian operations, dismissed the case and imposed costs of five million rupees ($61,000) after a judge deemed it “devoid of merits”, local legal news website LiveLaw reported.
Indian Deputy Information Technology Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said platforms operating in the country must “be in compliance with Indian law”.
Mr Dorsey, who co-founded Twitter and stepped down as chief executive in 2021, said in June that Twitter had come under sustained pressure from Indian officials during his tenure.
