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The Indian government has changed its tune, criticising Twitter Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. for removing accounts that breach the social media companies' community guidelines.

According to persons familiar with the situation, the Ministry of Information Technology stated in a court filing last week that Twitter's decision to suspend lawyer Sanjay Hegde's account three years ago .

According to persons familiar with the situation, the Ministry of Information Technology stated in a court filing last week that Twitter's decision to suspend lawyer Sanjay Hegde's account three years ago violated the Indian constitution and free expression rights.

This comes after the government said last month that Meta and Twitter must follow Indian laws that require the companies to give users a reasonable chance to defend themselves before removing a post or suspending an account, except in extreme cases such as content relating to rape threats or terrorism, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the details are private.

In a 2019 filing, the government stated that Hegde and Twitter were responsible for resolving the situation.

At a time when Elon Musk's opinions on content moderation are in the spotlight globally, a decision in this batch of cases before the Delhi High Court might determine internet corporations' censorship abilities in the country of more than 1.3 billion people. It also gives the Indian government's long-running battle with social media companies a new dimension.

Twitter and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology both declined to comment, while Twitter and Facebook did not respond to demands for comment.

Public Service

The two tech behemoths have regularly clashed with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration's efforts to regulate large social media under the 2021 information technology laws. In a court battle last year, Twitter accepted to tighter limits, while Meta has challenged the rules that might force its messaging platform WhatsApp to breach its encryption.

According to those acquainted with the situation, both Twitter and Meta have justified their ability to remove posts or user accounts by claiming that they follow their community guidelines and user-agreed terms of service. Petitioners claim that social media behemoths have effectively established a duopoly and perform a public role.