It would be suitable if an age limit was introduced for using social media akin to the legal age for drinking alcohol, said the High Court of Karnataka on Tuesday.
Introducing Age Limit For Use Of Social Media
This observation was made by a division bench of Justices G Narendar and Vijaykumar A Patil while hearing an appeal by X Corp (formerly Twitter).
It was challenging the single judge order of June 30 which had dismissed its plea to the takedown orders issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTY).
Under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act between February 2, 2021 and February 28, 2022, MeiTY had issued 10 Government Orders directing it to block 1,474 accounts, 175 Tweets, 256 URLs and one hashtag.
In response to this, Twitter, now X corporation, challenged the orders related to 39 of these URLs.
How Did This Happen?
Further, Justice G Narendar noted,”Ban social media. I will tell you a lot of good will come. Today’s school-going children are so addicted to it. I think there should be an age limit such as in the Excise rules.”
“Children may be 17 or 18. But do they have the maturity to judge what is or is not in the interest of the nation? Not only on social media, but even on the Internet things should be removed, it corrupts the mind. The government should consider bringing in an age limit for the use of social media,” the court observed.
Besides this, the court had also imposed a cost of Rs 50 lakh on X Corp.
MeiTY had not informed the users about blocking their tweets and accounts and even the company was forbidden from informing them, X Corp’s counsel argued, in its defense.
Further, HC asked the Government saying, “You do not release the order. He is not permitted to reveal the order. How is he going to defend himself?”
Moreover, the government may have to tweak the rules a bit as it is at the government’s discretion that X Corp is blocking the accounts of users and the company cannot be left high and dry, HC suggested.
Adding, “When it comes to national security, everybody has to be on the same page.”
The bench said X Corp could not be the judge when the counsel for the company argued that it had informed which order of MeiTY it could comply with and which it could not.
The X Corp “cannot be given the right to judge the content. If the content says Apple a day keeps the doctor away, you will interpret that as being against the doctor and the interest of the nation?” the court said.
Moving ahead, the hearing of the case was adjourned to Wednesday when the HC will decide on the interim relief sought by X Corp and the hearing of the appeal will be heard after that, the HC said.
