One blocking order, on a mean, each 68 seconds. Round 1,275 on daily basis. Practically 1.95 lakh in simply 5 months.
Considerably, this era included the scholars’ protests in opposition to examination leaks at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, which started in early June and was known as off on July 25 following the resignation of then Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
To place this sharp rise in perspective, RTI data obtained by The Indian Categorical final yr confirmed that between October 2024 and October 2025, a complete of two,312 blocking orders were sent to 19 online platforms through the Sahyog portal, translating to a each day common of six such orders a day.
Whereas the month-to-month break-up isn’t obtainable, a senior authorities official stated {that a} “appreciable share” of the blocking orders had been issued through the protests as they gathered momentum, significantly on Instagram.
Not surprisingly, of the three platforms, Instagram accounted for the biggest share of those authorities instructions, receiving almost 1 lakh blocking orders through the five-month interval — simply over half of the whole.
Fb, which has seen a slowdown in consumer progress worldwide, obtained round 80,000 orders, whereas YouTube obtained almost 15,000.
Altogether, Meta-owned platforms Fb and Instagram obtained roughly 9 out of each 10 orders issued to the three firms. These figures rely blocking orders, every of which may cowl a whole lot of particular person items of content material or accounts, a majority of which have been issued via the Residence Ministry’s Sahyog portal – a platform developed to ship blocking notices — by varied Central and state businesses.
Based on the Residence Ministry’s 2024-25 annual report, somewhat over 1.11 lakh items of “suspicious on-line content material” had been blocked till March 2025 beneath Part 79(3)(b) of the Data Know-how (IT) Act, together with via the Sahyog portal, in the entire yr.
The dimensions of the blocking orders is just one a part of the story; the opposite is Meta’s response.
The Indian Categorical has learnt that, with the intention to adjust to the government-mandated three-hour takedown timeline, Meta has built-in its API (Utility Programming Interface) with the Sahyog portal, permitting content material flagged via authorities instructions uploaded on the system to be mechanically taken down from its platforms, with out a separate human evaluation by the corporate.
This automation eliminates the room for Meta to evaluation or contest any of those content material take-down directives earlier than it complies with them.
The censorship drive on Instagram, as per data shared by customers on social media, appeared to focus on a number of posts supporting the scholars’ protests, criticism of the federal government’s ethanol gasoline mixing coverage, and content material associated to West Bengal Meeting elections, aside from deepfakes, amongst different issues.
Aam Aadmi Occasion chief Arvind Kejriwal stated a few of his Instagram posts had been blocked in India.
Digital rights activists say that the automated takedown mechanism being adopted by Meta is fraught on condition that firms are legally required to takedown content material solely upon receiving what’s known as “precise data” of a lawful order.
“An API that executes takedowns mechanically has no data in any respect. No one at Meta reads the order. No one checks whether or not it comes from an officer of the prescribed rank or states the explanations the amended rule now requires… Machine-to-machine execution converts a conditional authorized responsibility into an unconditional compliance,” stated Apar Gupta, advocate and founder director of the Delhi-based Web Freedom Basis.
Many of those orders are issued via the Residence Ministry’s Sahyog portal — which all three social media firms have joined — beneath Part 79(3)(b) of the IT Act, 2000. As per the supply, platforms are required to take down posts deemed illegal by varied authorities and regulation enforcement businesses to take care of the authorized immunity they get pleasure from from user-generated content material.
These takedown orders, nonetheless, are along with these issued by the federal government beneath Part 69(A) of the IT Act, which is invoked to difficulty on-line censorship directives however is basically restricted to offences associated to nationwide safety and public order.
India has over 600 million social media customers, and estimates peg each day content material posted to social media platforms within the nation anyplace between 10 million to 100 million posts, in what’s the world’s largest consumer base marketplace for prime tech firms.
Nonetheless, the quantity of posts on social media might not essentially at all times be proportional to takedown notices from governments.
As an example, as per Meta’s newest transparency report, between July-December 2025, the corporate took down greater than 23 million items of content material in Indonesia, which has lower than a 3rd of India’s consumer base. In the identical interval, the corporate took down greater than 41,000 items of content material in India, although the rely greater than doubled from the 28,000 items of content material the platform had blocked between January-June 2025.
Meta additionally says that when it blocks content material primarily based on authorized requests from governments and courts, in a majority of instances, it informs customers which state authority despatched the request ensuing within the restriction — nonetheless, not in India and another markets, resulting from “authorized obligations and regulatory issues”.
Queries despatched to Meta, Google remained unanswered till publication. The ministries of Residence Affairs and IT didn’t reply to questions on the problem.
Trade insiders say that what has additionally compelled firms to step up compliance with the federal government’s blocking diktats is a authorized obligation to take away content material way more rapidly than earlier than.
In February, the IT Ministry notified amendments to the Data Know-how (Middleman Pointers and Digital Media Ethics Code) Guidelines, 2021, with a contentious requirement to take away content material inside 2-3 hours versus the earlier window of 24-36 hours.
