Why does X continue the Indian government as a musk Woos Modi? | Elon Musk News

When Elon Musk met Narendra Modi in Washington DC in February, the head of SpaceX and Tesla presented a gift to Indias and presented it to his family. Modi described the meeting as very good.

Modi was in the United States to see President Donald Trump. By meeting Modis with Musk, the two spoke of collaboration in the fields of artificial intelligence (AI), spatial exploration, innovation and sustainable development, according to the India's Ministry of External Affairs.

But almost a month later, the Musks X social media platform filed a complaint against the Indian government, alleging that New Delhi illegally censors in online content.

The trial is getting closer to Musk closer to the launch of Starlink and Tesla in India.

So why is X Suite India just like Musk tries to charm Modi?

Why does X continue the Indian government?

In a prosecution filed before the high court of the state of southern Karnataka on March 5, X allegedly alleged that the government of India uses an inadmissible parallel mechanism which blocks the content online and also allows civil servants and ministries of the government to delete illegal content online, to bypass the legal process for the regulation of content in the law on information technology.

Article 69a of the Pays Act, which was adopted in October 2000, gives the Ministry of IT IN the right to delete online content deemed harmful to the country's national security and the public decorum, but it must follow a legal process under which the Ministry requests authorization to withdraw the online content of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technologies (Meity). Meity examines the content and then decides to censor it.

Now, the Indian government has introduced a new mechanism to remove the content of article 79 (3) b) from the IT law, which has a separate blocking process.

Article 79 (3) (b) deletes online content following a simple notification of a government official. The notices of deleting content can be sent via the portal of SAHYOG governments (which means cooperation in English) without any form of judicial review.

The Indian government requires that social media platforms like X are part of the SAHYOG portal, but the social media platform affirms that this will make it submit to arbitrary censorship.

The new power of legal censorship they created [through the Sahyog portal] Has no guarantees such as the requirement of an appointed officer sending the request for censorship to the central government. Now, it can be done by any department of the government by appointing an officer who can send withdrawal requests, as was made by the country ministry of the country earlier this year, when he ordered X to withdraw more than 200 videos concerning a stampede that occurred in the New Delhi Foundation in February, in Al Jazeera, at Apar Gupta, lawyer and co-founder of the Internet Freedom Foundation, Jazeera.

Thanks to the parallel censorship system, the government has crossed an illegal measure. There is merit of the complaint made by X in this case, added Gupta.

The member of the Bharatiya Janata (BJP) party and former IT minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said to the Indian news agency Asian News International: India is a country where the law applies to everyone. X is in his right to go to court.

The XS case against the government was made public by the Indian media on March 20 and the next hearing is at the High Court of Karnataka on March 27.

Al Jazeera contacted the IT Indias ministry and the BJP party in power to comment.

Does the controversy on the XS chatbot lead this case?

It doesn't seem to do it. While Meity officials told local media that he spoke to X about the content generated by the integrated chatbot social media platforms, Grok 3, the X trial is before that.

In recent weeks, Grok has been praised in India by generating content and answers to questions from users who are considered abusive and controversial by the government of BJP in power.

When an X user asked Grok if the responses of Prime Minister Modis are scripted, the chatbot replied: Modis interviews often seem scripted that his answers are polished, on the message and rarely moving away from the story. Is a PR machine, using social media and controlled parameters to shape its image, as we see with its heavy multimedia strategy since 2014. Real impromptu moments? Almost nonexistent.

GUPTA said: there has been a high level of self -censorship in India, as well as an increase in what is called digital authoritarianism, in which many people do not feel free to say what they mean. Grok gives them the opportunity to ask critical questions about the Union government, in particular the Prime Minister and the Chatbot answered on the basis of a data flow, which includes Wikipedia articles and journalistic articles in a talkative and engaging way.

But in its root, people must understand that Grok is mainly an AI that has been trained on public resources and what it indicates can also reflect disinformation and can suffer from prejudices, he added.

There is no correlation between the filing of the case and the grok responses generating a viral trend. The only relationship is that the same Ministry of the Government [MeitY] is involved, he added.

What does this mean for X users in India?

GUPTA said it was too early to say what would be the impact of the result of the users of X in the country.

For users in India, there have always been frictions between the government and the large social media platforms. The reason behind this is that the government often does not follow the constitutional limits imposed on them and requires censorship for political reasons. Thus, any decline in platforms ends up supporting the cause of freedom of expression, which is very necessary in closed societies where a very high level of censorship is present, he said.

But in this case, X also has a historical problem not to be more transparent with the way it decides and determines its content moderation practices, and on a global scale, X has ceased to report government requests for withdrawals, which were previously subjected before the control of the muscles. So, X is certainly not a model business player in a way either, he added.

Will the X trial damage the prospects of musks in India?

It is unlikely, say experts. Michael Kugelman, director of the Southern Asia Institute at Wilson Center, a Washington -based reflection group, DC, told Al Jazeera that Musk operates with great leverage in India, thanks to its wealth and investment capital, it is ready to deploy in high growth industries such as telecommunications and renewals.

Musk was also appointed by Trump to lead the American governments New Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and announced discounts for swinging federal jobs and said that it has found billions of dollars of waste and fraud in public spending.

Its proximity to Trump further increases this lever effect. He therefore has a large room for maneuver to do as he wishes without risk of alienating New Delhi. He can hang Starlink and Tesla while acting on his principle of absolutism of freedom of expression on social networks, he said. Hehas already concluded agreements with telecommunications companies in India to provide Starlink services and is in talks with others. Plans to introduce a Tesla manufacturing base in the country are also underway.