Centre’s online content blocking orders double to 24,000 in a year, over half on X

Requests to MeitY for blocking online content and subsequent blocking orders peaked during Operation Sindoor in May 2025 and has remained “very high” ever since. Sources said more than half the requests and complaints came from nodal officers in the Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of External Affairs, and the rest from other Ministries, Departments and individuals.

According to sources, several of these blocking orders were for taking down URLs of Instagram, Facebook and YouTube posts of political parties and politicians. Some politicians have also complained to the Home Ministry or MeitY about fake social media posts using their name and images.

The most recent “high-profile” complaint to the Home Ministry and MeitY came earlier this month from Congress MP Shashi Tharoor. Speaking to The Indian Express, Tharoor said deep fake videos of him had emerged. “It was best that I put up my complaints in writing. The fake content was apparently being generated from Pakistan and I am told, at least in India the fake content has been blocked,” he said.

The Congress MP had referred to the incident in an April 9 post on X. He wrote, “There are an alarming number of deepfake videos circulating of me, with convincing-sounding AI generated voice-overs over genuine footage of old interviews, having ‘me’ saying things I have never said. Disappointed that so many on social media are believing these lies and issuing baseless comments attacking me for purported views that I have not expressed…”

The blocking orders are passed under provisions of Section 69A of the Information Technology Act 2000, which empowers the Government to block public access to computer resources on any of these five grounds: maintain the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity; safeguard its defence and security; maintain friendly relations with foreign states; preserve public order; and investigate offences.

Similar to rules and guidelines for the interception of electronic communications, Section 69A stipulates the procedure before a final blocking order can be passed:

lMeitY has a Designated Officer to head the “Blocking Committee”. The Committee includes representatives, or “nodal officers”, from the Ministries of Law and Justice, Home and Information and Broadcasting, and the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), as its members, either of Joint Secretary rank or above.

lEach blocking order passed by the Committee needs final approval of the Secretary, MeitY.

Officials told The Indian Express that for each sitting, mostly virtual, of the “Blocking Committee”, officials from global social media companies such as Meta as well as xAI (owned by Elon Musk) are present to present their views on a case-by-case basis.

What is important, they said, is that the “Blocking Committee” earlier used to convene mostly once a week but now has virtual sittings several times a week.

Section 69A also has an “emergency” clause whereby the Designated Officer has to put down in writing as to why the “interim measure” of issuing an urgent blocking order was being issued without the sitting of the Committee. The order then has to be approved by the Committee within 48 hours.

A senior official said the “interim” measure was also being increasingly used. “With the explosion of AI posts and the flood of deep fakes, we are now frequently issuing blocking orders under the emergency clause. Several requests also come to us from state governments for urgent intervention when a situation arises…,” the official said.

Information on the extent of blocking of “objectionable” URLs has been coming in bits and pieces, with the Government refraining from providing the complete data even to Parliament and via RTI. In 2023, the then IT Minister of State Rajeev Chandrashekhar informed Parliament that his Ministry had blocked 36,838 URLs between January 2018 and October 2023, roughly 6,000 a year.

On March 18 this year, The Indian Express reported that inter-Ministerial discussions were on for the Government to allow four other Ministries, namely Home Affairs, External Affairs, Defence, and Information and Broadcasting, to also issue blocking orders to social media platforms in addition to MeitY under Section 69A of the IT Act.