But last month, X blocked about a dozen accounts, many known for satirical posts about the government, acting on orders issued under Section 69A of India’s IT Act.
Kumar Nayan, whose X account @Nehr_who? has about 242,000 followers, told the BBC he received neither prior notice nor an explanation for the block.
Nayan said his account was restored this week by a court order, but 10 posts remain blocked in India pending review by a government-appointed panel. The BBC has seen the posts, all of which either mock Prime Minister Narendra Modi or criticise his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government.
“No reasonable person will say that these posts threaten the nation’s security or disturb communal harmony. They are just funny posts, so why does the government want them taken down? Nayan asks.
He added that by challenging the order in court, his identity is now public, raising concerns about his safety.
“I have lost the anonymity offered by social media, which is a double-edged sword but also shields whistleblowers and critics from threats and harassment,” he says.
Nayan has moved home since his identity became public.
The BBC has shared a list of questions with MeitY.
Meanwhile, a recent US government report, external noted that since 2021, US social media firms had been subjected to an “increasing number of takedown requests for content and user accounts related to issues that appear politically motivated”.
Nikhil Pahwa, a digital rights activist, says the proposed amendments to the IT rules only strengthen the government’s existing “infrastructure for mass censorship”.
In an article, external co-authored with Apar Gupta, founder of the Internet Freedom Foundation, in the Times of India newspaper, Pahwa traces how successive amendments to the IT rules – introduced in 2021 – have expanded the government’s control over online content and diminished users’ rights.
A 2021 amendment brought digital news outlets under government oversight, while a 2025 change strengthened the federal home ministry’s Sahyog portal – a centralised platform that allows a number of agencies to issue takedown notices to social media companies with limited transparency and fewer safeguards, say the authors.
