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The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) asked social media companies to block 36,838 URLs between 2018 and October 2023, IT minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar shared the data in Parliament.
“The government issues lawful directions for blocking for access of information by public under section 69A of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 which provides power to government to issue such directions if it is necessary or expedient to do so in the interest of sovereignty and integrity, defence of India, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States or public order or for inciting cognizable offence relating to above,” said Chandrasekhar in a written response to CPI(M)’s John Brittas.
The opposition leader had asked the minister to share the number and details of orders issued by the centre directing the social media platforms, including Twitter and Facebook, to block or remove posts, entire accounts or topic hashtags.
Maximum blocking orders sent to X
Between 2018 and October this year, the centre sent 13,660 blocking orders to Elon Musk-owned X (formerly Twitter) – the highest received by any social media intermediary in the group.
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The company received 224 orders in 2018; 1041 orders in 2019; 2,731 directions in 2020; 2,851 in 2021; 3,423 in 2022; and 3,390 in 2023 till October.
Meanwhile, between 2018 and October this year, the ministry issued 10,197 blocking orders to Facebook; Instagram was told to remove 3,023 URLs; 5,759 orders were given to YouTube and 4,199 to other social media intermediaries.
Chandrasekhar said that “the policies of the government are aimed at ensuring that the internet in India is open, safe, trusted and accountable to all users”.
In 2018, MeitY blocked 2,799 URLs while 7,502 URLs were blocked until October this year. In 2020, at 9,849 maximum number of URLs were blocked.
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