Social media site claims Indian government directed it to block 2,355 accounts last week, including two Reuters handles. X claims it is “deeply concerned about ongoing press censorship in India” after New Delhi directed the social media site to block over 2,300 accounts, including two Reuters news agency handles.
X reinstated the Reuters News account in India on Sunday, a day after it indicated it was requested by the Indian government to shut it down, citing a legal request. Numerous other suspended accounts were also reinstated, with New Delhi refusing its involvement in the takedown.
On Tuesday, X, backed by billionaire Elon Musk, stated that the government of India on July 3 directed it to block 2,355 accounts in India under the provisions of Section 69A of the Information Technology (IT) Act.
“Non-compliance would have exposed us to criminal liability. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology insisted on action within an hour without explanation and required the accounts to stay blocked until further orders,” X stated.
A spokesman for India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology stated the government issued “any fresh blocking order” on July 3 and had “no intention to block any prominent international news channels”, including Reuters and Reuters World, as per a tweet on X by ANI news agency, the Indian partner of Reuters.
“Soon after Reuters and Reuters World were blocked on the X platform in India, right away the government wrote to X to release them,” the post stated. “The government persistently interacted and aggressively pursued X from the late night of July 5, 2025.”
The spokesperson announced X had “unnecessarily taken advantage of technicalities involved around the process and didn’t unblock” the accounts.
India’s IT Act, enacted in 2000, permits authorised government representatives to order the removal of material from online social networking sites they consider to be infringing on domestic laws, such as based on national security concerns or if a message poses a threat to public order.
X, which was once called Twitter, has historically had a contentious relationship with India’s government regarding content-removal requests. In March, the company filed suit against the federal government over a new government website. The company alleges that it broadens takedown authority to “countless” government officials. The case is ongoing.
India, the largest democracy in the world, consistently ranks among the world’s top five for the number of requests by a government to take down social media content. Human rights organisations assert that freedom of expression and a free press are threatened in India ever since Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi assumed office in 2014.
New Delhi has consistently employed blanket internet shutdowns amid unrest. In April, the government carried out a broad crackdown on social media, suspending over a dozen Pakistani YouTube channels for spreading “provocative” content purportedly after an attack in Indian-held Kashmir. Most of them have been reactivated. New Delhi has also intermittently cut internet access in the northeastern state of Manipur since 2023, after ethnic violence.
