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Elon Musk has come to blows with the Indian Government in a dispute that surrounds his social media platform X, as the latter has ordered the removal of certain content that Musk remains unwilling to comply with.
Since taking over Twitter, now 'X', in September 2022 Elon Musk has remained consistent in his desire for the site to be the bastion of free speech practices.
He has compared the social media platform to a 'digital town square' where everyone has a voice than can be heard - even those of his detractors, which he's somewhat contradicted in the past by 'mysteriously' banning journalists who he doesn't agree with.
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These demands for 'absolute' free speech, however, have led him into conflict with the Indian government who he has now issues a new lawsuit towards following their demands for content controls.
As reported by the Guardian, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has ordered Musk's X to take content down in an expansion of censorship powers that make such removals far easier for 'countless' government officials.
X's lawsuit argues that the Indian IT ministry is using a government-created website to issue content blocking orders, and is forcing certain social media companies to comply with their demands. In the eyes of Musk and his team at X, these orders do not provide enough legal safeguards that would otherwise allow them to go along with.
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They also claimed that India's use of this specialist website to control information on social media creates "an impermissible parallel mechanism" that causes "unrestrained censorship of information in India."
Musk himself has previously outlined that his otherwise impeachable limits for free speech are reached within the legal threshold, as indicated in a 2022 post on X prior to his takeover.
"By 'free speech', I simply mean what matches the law," Musk explained. "I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law. If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws in that effect. Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people."
Whether he'd hold up these beliefs when related to law in India is apparently more complicated, but there also remains the concern of Musk's other business ventures in the country.
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He's still trying to introduce both Starlink and Tesla to Indian markets, and clashing with the government would potentially jeopardize those arrangements, even after he previously was asked to provide Starlink data following a drug smuggling incident.
This isn't the first time that Twitter/X management have clashed with the Indian government on the same issue either, as similar requests were made prior to Musk's ownership of the company surrounding Modi's request to quash posts about a farmers' protest.
Twitter eventually complied with the government's demands, but it's clear that it remains a hot topic following Musk's decision to sue over similar actions.