Govt denies making any fresh demand for blockage of global wire agency's X account

The Print

09-07-2025

'The Government has not issued any fresh blocking order on 3rd July 2025 and has no intention to block any prominent international News Channels, including Reuters and ReutersWorld. The moment Reuters and ReutersWorld were blocked on the X platform in India, immediately the government wrote to 'X' to unblock them,' an official spokesperson of the Ministry of Electronics and IT (Meity) said.
The statement came as the Elon Musk-owned platform asserted that the government of India, on July 3, sought the blocking of over 2,300 X handles in India. The list, it claimed, included the handle Reuters in India.
New Delhi, Jul 8 (PTI) The government on Tuesday said it has not made any fresh requests to block access to certain X accounts in the country and that it had proactively got blockage of a prominent international wire agency lifted.
On Saturday night, Reuters' X account, @Reuters, became inaccessible in India due to a 'legal demand' made by the government, the micro-blogging website had said.
While the government was quick to write to X asking for the reasons for the blockage and sought restoration of access to the account, sources indicated that the embargo may have been due to a government request made for blocking certain accounts during Operation Sindoor in May.
However, X had not blocked Reuters' account then.
With those circumstances not remaining relevant, the Indian government was not seeking any new blockage.
The spokesperson on Tuesday said that the government continuously engaged and vigorously pursued X from the late night of July 5, 2025.
''X' has unnecessarily exploited technicalities involved around the process and didn't unblock the URLs. However, after a lot of follow up on an hourly basis, X has finally unblocked Reuters and other URLs after 9 pm on 6th July 2025. They took more than 21 hours to unblock Reuters,' the spokesperson said.
The response came as X in a post on its official handle on Tuesday said access to Reuters in India was blocked following an official order issued on July 3.
'On July 3, 2025, the Indian government ordered X to block 2,355 accounts in India, including international news outlets like @Reuters and @ReutersWorld, under Section 69A of the IT Act. Non-compliance risked criminal liability,' the Global Affairs account of X said.
It went on to claim that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology – the nodal ministry which executes requests for blockage on behalf of any arm of the government – had on July 3 demanded immediate action without providing any reason, and required the accounts to remain blocked until further notice.
'We are deeply concerned about ongoing press censorship in India due to these blocking orders. X is exploring all legal options available. Unlike users located in India, X is restricted by Indian law in its ability to bring legal challenges against these executive orders. We urge affected users to pursue legal remedies through the courts,' X said.
The government spokesperson refuted X's assertions.
Reuters' X account was withheld in India for a few hours but restored later on Sunday after the government intervened to say it had not sought the blocking of the handle.
The official accounts of Chinese media organisation Global Times and Turkish media house TRT World on X were also blocked again on the same day citing a legal demand but the government spokesperson said that there was no need to block even those accounts then.
Some of the major media house accounts that were blocked during Operation Sindoor, including Chinese Xinhua News, continued to be accessible without any disruption. PTI PRS ANZ CS PRS SHW
This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.