- India has ordered X to dam over 8,000 accounts, the social media firm mentioned on Might 8, 2025
- X deemed India's orders as censorship and urged account holders to legally problem the blocks
- Each India and Pakistan have intensified web censorship because the battle between the 2 international locations continues to escalate
India has issued government orders to X, asking the social media firm to dam over 8,000 accounts throughout the nation. The targets, X explains, embrace accounts belonging to worldwide information organizations and distinguished X customers.
X's World Authorities Affairs staff disclosed the small print in a prolonged tweet on Thursday, May8, 2025, deeming these requests as "censorship" and urging account holders based mostly in India to legally problem the blocks.
"Blocking complete accounts just isn’t solely pointless, it quantities to censorship of present and future content material, and is opposite to the elemental proper of free speech," wrote X.
X disagrees nevertheless it's "restricted by Indian regulation"
"To adjust to the orders, we’ll withhold the desired accounts in India alone. We now have begun that course of," wrote X, including that the corporate disagrees with the Indian authorities’s calls for.
This implies, nevertheless, that blocked account holders might be able to hold accessing the platform through the use of top-of-the-line VPN companies to spoof their IP tackle location.
"X is exploring all attainable authorized avenues out there to the corporate. In contrast to customers situated in India, X is restricted by Indian regulation in its capacity to carry authorized challenges in opposition to these government orders," the corporate added, whereas encouraging all customers impacted to hunt applicable reduction from the courts.
The social media firm even shared a listing of authorized support organizations that might assist folks difficult these blocking orders, and asserted that it had notified these impacted by these actions.
X's World Authorities Affairs account was briefly withheld in India, as reported by Indian expertise journalist Adit Agrawal on her LinkedIn account.
The account was restored on Friday morning. In accordance with an individual conscious of the matter, Agrawal reported, X blocked the account with out an official order after authorities requested the corporate in regards to the tweet.
"Now MeitY has issued an order to X to NOT block it, as per this individual," wrote Agrawal.
India/Pakistan info crackdown
X's blocking orders coincide with a spike in web censorship throughout the nation because the battle with the neighboring Pakistan intensifies.
On Wednesday, Might 7, Meta additionally blocked a serious Muslim information web page on Instagram on the authorities' request, as reported by The Guardian.
On Thursday, India’s Ministry of Info and Broadcasting additionally issued an advisory urging all media corporations, streaming companies, and on-line platforms to dam all content material originating from Pakistan.
On his aspect, Pakistan has resumed entry to X on Wednesday after a 15-month-long ban.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) additionally blocked entry to at the least 16 YouTube information channels and 32 web sites from India on the identical day, for allegedly spreading misinformation and anti-Pakistan propaganda.
As reported by the BBC, India and Pakistan blame one another for escalating army tensions and have each been launching a sequence of missiles and drone strikes since Wednesday. This represents a serious escalation of present tensions over the disputed space of Kashmir between the 2 nuclear-armed international locations.
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