Censorship – Social Media

On 8 May 2025, X reported that it had received executive orders from the Indian government requiring X to block over 8,000 accounts in India, subject to potential penalties including significant fines and imprisonment of the company’s local employees. The orders included demands to block access in India to accounts belonging to international news organizations and prominent X users. In most cases, the Indian government had not specified which posts from an account have violated India’s local laws. X added that for a significant number of accounts, they had not received any evidence or justification to block the accounts.

In their tweet, X added “To comply with the orders, we will withhold the specified accounts in India alone. We have begun that process. However, we disagree with the Indian government’s demands. Blocking entire accounts is not only unnecessary, it amounts to censorship of existing and future content, and is contrary to the fundamental right of free speech.”