India’s top court Tuesday struck down a law that criminalized sharing “grossly offensive” content online including posts on Facebook and Twitter.
But what exactly was in Section 66A of the Information Technology Act that made it unconstitutional?
While the details of the Supreme Court ruling have yet to be released, free-speech activists said Section 66A was too vague and allowed too much room for interpretation and abuse.
Opponents of the law were challenging the provision, arguing that it contravened the constitution which guarantees freedom of speech.
The government tried to defend the law saying it prevented the spread of offensive material that could incite public anger or violence.
The law sets out a maximum punishment of three years in jail and a fine for people convicted of using computers or other communication devices to send information that is “grossly offensive or has menacing character.” It does not define either term.
The legislation also leveled the same punishment for publishing information online that the sender “knows to be false” but still spread “for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred or ill will.”
The act extended to any message or information created or received on a computer, computer system or communication device including attachments in text messages, images, audio, video and any other electronic record.
Anything sent this way “for the purpose of causing annoyance or inconvenience or to deceive or to mislead the addressee or recipient about the origin of such messages” was against the law, according to the act.
Correction: A previous version of this post incorrectly referred to the part of the Information Technology Act that has been overturned as Section 66(a). It is Section 66A.
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