Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Tamil Nadu spokesperson, SG Suryah, has moved the Delhi High Court (HC) challenging the decisions taken by Meta (Facebook) to restrict access and to demonetise his account, without giving him a chance to be heard for his explanation. The petition was listed before Justice Kameswar Rao, who has called for the hearing of the matter on February 9th.
SG Suryah said that two of his videos were removed from the Meta platform in December 2021, because it allegedly violated community guidelines. After this, the access to his Facebook account was restricted for a month. Following which his account was also demonetised. His plea to the Delhi HC is to reinstate his Facebook account with the same kind of reach he had, back in November 2021.
Suryah claimed that the content of the said YouTube videos was against the Liberations Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), made by a novelist, orator and journalist, Jayakanthan. However, Meta had allegedly marked the two videos as ‘pro LTTE’ and went ahead to restrict access to his Facebook, following which it was also demonetised.
“The Respondent No.2 misinterpreted the contents of aforesaid two posts, which were posted in tamil language and took a wrongful decision by restricting the Petitioner’s reach to the public at large and that too without even affording any opportunity of hearing to the Petitioner” the petition stated.
SG Suryah claimed in his plea, “There is no sanction for this action under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the latest the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 made thereunder.”
In addition, as Suryah was not given an opportunity to be heard before his account was restricted, he said that Meta has violated the Fundamental Rights of Suryah, referring to Articles 14, 19 and 21. In view of the above, he sought directions to Meta/Facebook to reinstate his account and to quash the decision to demonetize it.
(With inputs from Bar and Bench)
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