Facebook's parent company Meta Platforms told the Delhi High Court that free speech rights, guaranteed under Article 19 of the Constitution of India, cannot be invoked against it since it is a private entity.
Meta, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, made this assertion in an affidavit filed in response to a writ petition alleging that an Instagram account 'Wokeflix' was illegally disabled, violating the right to free speech.
The affidavit called for the case to be thrown out, contesting that Instagram is "a free and voluntary platform, and Petitioner has no fundamental right to use it."
In response to another such petition, the government in March had told the court that an individual's freedoms cannot be "waylaid or jettisoned in the slipstream of social and technological advancement," PTI reported.