Government counsel raises doubts regarding Twitter’s locus standi to bat for account holders

In the latest hearing of a writ petition filed by Twitter against blocking orders of the Centre, senior advocate for the government, Mr Shankar Narayanan, called Twitter’s locus standi to argue the fundamental rights of account holders into question.

At the Tuesday hearing before Justice Krishna Dixit of the Karnataka High Court, the government counsel used the analogy of a print newspaper against that of Twitter: whereas a print editor might reject a Letter to the Editor in his newspaper for whatever reason, Twitter was an intermediary which facilitated accounts for people to share their views.