Why India’s censorship of news media online without stating reasons is unlawful
The Indian government’s move to block a news website and several social media accounts amid escalating tensions between India and Pakistan without any orders stating the reasons for this may violate the legal framework that allows online content to be taken down, experts said.
The latest block was imposed on Friday morning on The Wire. The website of the media organisation’s English-language section was blocked by internet service providers on orders from the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The blocking order was not communicated to The Wire. The website was restored by the government on Saturday after it took down a report flagged by the authorities.
On Thursday, social media platform X’s Global Government Affairs account said that the Indian government had ordered the firm to block over 8,000 accounts in India. These included “accounts belonging to international news organisations and prominent X users”, it said.
Among the X accounts blocked are those belonging to news portals BBC Urdu, Maktoob Media, The Kashmiriyat and Free Press Kashmir.
X’s Global Government Affairs unit stated that the government had not specified which posts of the accounts in question had violated Indian law.
Earlier on Thursday, the Instagram account of United States-based news portal Muslim was blocked in response to legal demands by the government.
On April 29, the YouTube channel of 4 PM News, a digital...
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