Social Media Platform ‘X’ Complies with Indian Government Orders, Withholds Accounts

According to a statement released by Elon Musk’s well-known social media company “X,” certain accounts and posts have been blocked on the platform as a result of executive orders from the Indian government.

“The Indian government has issued executive orders requiring X to act on specific accounts and posts, subject to potential penalties including significant fines and imprisonment. In compliance with the orders, we will withhold these accounts and posts in India alone; however, we disagree with these actions and maintain that freedom of expression should extend to these posts,” the Global Government Affairs of ‘X’ posted.
The Global Government Affairs of ‘X also stated that the writ appeal challenging the Indian government’s orders remains pending and they have provided impacted users with notices of these actions in accordance with its policies.

“Due to legal restrictions, we are unable to publish the executive orders, but we believe that making them public is essential for transparency. This lack of disclosure can lead to a lack of accountability and arbitrary decision-making,” it added.

The Pakistani government withheld X’s account in India earlier in 2022. There have reportedly been two instances like this in the past few months. Although it had also been withheld earlier in July 2022, this account had been reactivated and was accessible. Later in October, the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting ordered YouTube to block 45 videos from 10 YouTube channels, citing intelligence agency input. On October 23, under the guidelines of the Information Technology Act, orders were issued to block the relevant videos.

The blocked videos had a cumulative viewership of over 1 crore 30 lakh views. The content included fake news and morphed videos spread with the intent to spread hatred among religious communities. Examples include false claims such as the Government has taken away the religious rights of certain communities, violent threats against religious communities, declaration of civil war in India, etc.