After govt steps in, X unblocks Reuters’ handles

On Saturday night, X blocked the handles of Reuters and Reuters World, with a message displayed on their accounts stating they had been withheld in India “in response to a legal demand”.

But in a statement on Sunday morning, an official spokesperson of the IT Ministry said, “There is no requirement from the Government of India to withhold Reuters handle. We are continuously working with X to resolve the problem.”

A senior official said the government had sent blocking orders to X related to some posts made by the news agency during Operation Sindoor in early May, but the platform, at the time, had not taken any action on the posts.

“When they blocked two accounts of Reuters on Saturday night, it caught us by surprise, because we had never asked X to block the accounts. Some takedown requests were made to X for posts made by Reuters during Operation Sindoor on May 7-8, but those posts were never taken down,” the official said.

“But now they turn around and block the accounts when no such demand was made, which we have been informally informed was an erroneous understanding of our previous orders. We have communicated with them verbally and also sent them a written order, asking to reverse course and unblock the accounts. There is no intent to block legitimate news platforms in India,” the official said.

X did not respond to queries on the issue.

“We are working with X to resolve this matter and get Reuters account reinstated in India as soon as possible,” a Reuters spokesperson said earlier in the day.

During Operation Sindoor, the Indian government had directed social media platforms like X to block several pieces of content and accounts that it felt were spreading deliberate misinformation and posting information that could subvert and undermine the Armed Forces’ ongoing operations at the time. While it had blocked a range of accounts it believed were linked to Pakistan and China, it had also directed blocking the X accounts of news platforms BBC Urdu and Outlook India, which was later revoked.

Earlier, in a statement on May 9, X had said that it had received executive orders from the Indian government asking for over 8,000 accounts to be blocked, including those belonging to “international news organisations and prominent X users”. The social media platform said that falling foul of the executive orders could subject it to potential penalties, including significant fines and imprisonment of its local employees.

The Indian Express had reported that following a flurry of what it called “misinformation” on social media platforms related to Operation Sindoor, a small team at the IT Ministry — which was set up last year during the Lok Sabha polls to flag and take down election-related misinformation on social media platforms — received reinforcement of personnel and was asked to step up monitoring and flag misleading content related to the conflict to be taken down. The monitoring happened round-the-clock, with people working across shifts.