No fresh order to block Reuters’ account: Govt rejects X claims

New Delhi: The Centre on Tuesday rejected Elon Musk-run X’s claims that it had directed the social media platform to block 2,355 accounts within the country, including Reuters, on July 3.

According to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), no such fresh blocking order or request was made to X.

After the Reuters account was withheld earlier this month, the government, in fact, continuously engaged with X to unblock it. After a lot of follow-ups, X finally unblocked Reuters and other URLs on July 6.

A MeitY spokesperson said: “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 Reuters World. The moment Reuters and Reuters World were blocked on the X platform in India, immediately the government wrote to ‘X’ to unblock them.”

An order was issued on May 7 during Operation Sindoor, but it was not enforced. In the aftermath of Operation Sindoor, India had issued a flurry of orders to take down posts and block accounts owing to national security concerns.

X appears to have enforced that order now, which is a mistake on their part. The government had reached out to the company to resolve this issue.

The clarification came after Musk-owned X claimed that it was directed by the Indian government to block more than 2,300 accounts, including the official handles of the global news agency Reuters.

According to the X’s Global Government Affairs handle, 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 Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology demanded immediate action- within one hour- without providing justification and required the accounts to remain blocked until further notice,” the social media platform claimed.

The government later requested X to unblock Reuters and ReutersWorld, according to X.

Earlier, the government had denied any role in the suspension of Reuters’ X account. “There is no requirement from the Government of India to withhold the Reuters handle. We are continuously working with X to resolve the problem,” a government official had said. It appears that X may have mistakenly enforced an outdated order.

IANS