Elon Musk-owned X takes down certain political posts on ECI's order

Elon Musk-owned microblogging platform X, upon the Election Commission’s request has restricted certain posts from India, said a news report.

The posts contain political content from parties, candidates and officials.

The microblogging platform has been asked by the EC to restrain these posts till the poll period. These posts, as per the emails posted by X sent by ECI nodal officer, violate certain provisions under Model Code of Conduct (MCC), like prohibiting criticism of the private lives of candidates or leaders and the sharing unverified allegations.

X made it clear that while it has taken down the posts, it disagrees with the takedown orders. “We disagree with these actions and maintain that freedom of expression should extend to these posts and political speech in general,” the company said.

Musk too disagreed with the order given by the EC stating that all posts on the platform were ‘freedom of speech’.

X in a statement said that they have informed the affected users of the order and has requested the EC to publish all of its takedown orders going forward.

“We have notified the affected users and in the interest of transparency, we are publishing the takedown orders here. We call on the Election Commission to publish all of its takedown orders going forward,” said X in the post.

The commission mentioned four posts on X by YSR Congress, Aam Aadmi Party, Andhra Pradesh’s former CM N. Chandrababu Naidu and Bihar’s deputy CM Samrat Chaudhary.