The Karnataka High Court today suggested that the Central government consider setting a minimum age for using social media so that children are prevented from using it.
A bench of Justices G Narender and Vijaykumar A Patil made the suggestion while dwelling upon the dangers of exposing children to social media.
“Best is to ban social media. I will tell you, lot of good will come. Seriously, today, school-going children are so addicted to it. At least, you should bring a user age limit. The children – maybe 17 or 18 – does he have the maturity to judge what is in the interest of the nation, what is not in the interest of the nation? User should be at least the age of 21 (years), because that is the age at which he gets to vote,” the Court orally observed.
The oral remark came at the fag end of the hearing in the appeal by X Corp (formerly Twitter) in the case concerning the Indian government’s orders to block certain tweets and accounts in 2021 and 2022.
The order in the interlocutory applications (IAs) will be pronounced on Wednesday.
The counsel appearing for the Central government told the Court that the law now requires a user to have Aadhaar and other documents before they can access certain online games.
The Court then asked why such measures were not being extended for social media as well.
“Why can’t it be extended here also? Everybody has an opinion on anything under the sun. Your client (X Corp) may not agree, but still…” Justice Narender observed.
Today’s hearing in the matter also saw the Court raising concern that the rules may have to be tweaked so that intermediaries such as X Corp are not threatened by account holders with prosecution, if they are ordered to take down posts or accounts while maintaining confidentiality.
“What happens if he blocks, without any justification. If it is in public domain, people will come to know about it. If somebody considers it defamation and sues him, what will be his remedy? It is very simple, you may have to tweak the rules a little. Like you (Central government counsel) said, he (X Corp) has to be given immunity. Because it is at your discretion he is doing it. Because if you are going to leave him high and dry, then how?” the Court remarked.
The bench further observed that X Corp cannot be expected to sit in judgment over which posts or accounts should be taken down on a subjective evaluation.
“(Suppose) One content says apple a day keeps the doctor away, can you say ‘no, no, this is anti-national, against doctors?’ … Tomorrow, you say, you interpret it and say it is against the doctor fraternity, it is against the interest of nation – can they accept that?” the Court asked.
The bench added that the only aspect to be examined is whether the content in question violates Section 69A (1) and (2) of the Information Technology Act, 2000. If these provisions are violated, then X Corp would have to comply with blocking orders.
However, in case there is no such violation noticed, the Court asked if X Corp could be forced to take down content and thereby risk prosecution by the account holder.
Meanwhile, the counsel appearing for X Corp today told the Court that its challenge in the appeal is confined to the manner in which a single-judge of the High Court had earlier made observations on the interpretation of the law on blocking posts and accounts.
The Court was told that X Corp has now complied with all the demands earlier challenged to block posts and accounts. However, a grievance was raised that over 1,000 tweets were asked to be taken down without providing sufficient reasons.
The Court took note of the submission and observed that the concern had to do with how the Central government can exercise its blocking orders. Such blocking orders have to be justified with reasons or the social media intermediary may be threatened by legal action from its users, the Court orally observed.
The matter initially started with Twitter, as it was known then, challenging certain blocking orders by the Indian government. A single-judge of the Karnataka High Court rejected the challenge and ordered the social media giant to pay a ₹50 lakh fine for its apparent failure to ensure timely compliance with the block demands.
