X says Reuters handles blocked after Modi govt request, unblocked after another govt request

Contradicting the Narendra Modi government’s statement, X said on Tuesday that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology had requested the social media platform to block access to the handles of Reuters and Reuters World, apart from 2,300 other accounts, in India.

It said the government itself requested the platform to later unblock the handles “after public outcry”.

X had blocked these handles on Saturday night with a message stating they had been withheld in India “in response to a legal demand”. In a statement on Sunday morning, an official spokesperson of the IT ministry had said, “There is no requirement from the Government of India to withhold Reuters handle. We are continuously working with X to resolve the problem.”

In a post on X on Tuesday, X said the order to block 2,355 handles was issued on July 3, 2025, with action demanded “within one hour”. “After public outcry, the government requested X to unblock @Reuters and @ReutersWorld,” X said. 

The platform said it was “restricted by Indian law in its ability to bring legal challenges against these executive orders” and was “deeply concerned about ongoing press censorship in India due to these blocking orders”.

Earlier, in a statement on May 9, in the wake of Operation Sindoor, X had said that it had received executive orders from the Indian government asking for over 8,000 accounts to be blocked, including those belonging to “international news organisations and prominent X users”. Newslaundry had reported on the mass blocking of those accounts.

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