X withholds posts of parties and leaders on EC's directive

Elon Musk-owned social media X has withheld some posts made by Indian politicians after the Indian Election Commission ordered their takedown for the remainder of the election period.

In an article posted by its Global Government Affairs team on Tuesday, X said that it acted in accordance with the poll panel's directive, but expressed its disagreement with the order. The posts in question were by the Aam Aadmi Party, the YSRCP, Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu, and Bihar Deputy Chief Minister and state BJP president Samrat Choudhary.

"The Election Commission of India has issued takedown orders requiring X to act on posts containing political speech shared from elected politicians, political parties, and candidates for office. In compliance with the orders, we have withheld these posts for the remainder of the election period; however, we disagree with these actions and maintain that freedom of expression should extend to these posts and political speech in general.”

It said the users affected had been notified and in the interest of transparency, it was publishing the takedown orders. “We call on the Election Commission to publish all of its takedown orders going forward.”