The government and social media platforms are at odds once more, and this time it’s Twitter, with which it already had a run-in. As Twitter sues the Indian government to contest some of the block orders on tweets and accounts, a new conflict is emerging between the two parties. Twitter, which has about 48 million users in India, claimed in its complaint, filed on Tuesday in the Karnataka High Court, that the government had abused its authority by directing it to unilaterally and unfairly remove a number of tweets from its site.

What exactly happened?

The business claimed that if it didn’t follow directions, the government in India threatened to file charges against its senior conformity director. On the same day, Union Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw declared that social media’s content would be subject to government regulation.

The case comes after a trying year and a half for Twitter in India, where the government has compelled it to delete hundreds of accounts and messages in accordance with new social media regulations that were put into place last year. The latest controversy appears to be going to increase the hostilities between the administration and all social media platforms.

“Social media accountability has become a valid question globally. It’s important to hold it accountable, which will first start with self-regulation, then industry regulation, followed by government regulation,” said Ashwini Vaishnaw.

In the past year, the microblogging platform has largely cooperated with the demands but has also attempted to push back against many of the obstacles. Twitter has very little room left to individually contest the takedown requests under India’s new IT regulations, and failure to comply could lead to legal action being taken against its compliance officer there.

Moreover, Twitter is not the first technology behemoth to sue the government. In a similar move from the previous year, WhatsApp contested new laws that may have given authorities the power to mass-surveillance and turn private chats into “traceable” data.

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