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The Union Government has issued a spate of takedown orders for posts satirising, criticising and mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modi and accounts critical of the government in response to the UGC Equity Regulations on X and Instagram. Over the last month, posts that were taken down on X include a reference by Hotmail co-founder Sabeer Bhatia to a viral mistranscription of a Sanskrit subhashita by Mr. Modi; criticism of the targeting of minorities in India; and two animated satirical cartoons featuring the Prime Minister.
The Hindu counted dozens of such posts in a review of takedown orders posted by affected users, but comprehensive statistics are not available, as these orders are confidential. Social media firms comply with takedown orders by making posts invisible in India, while they remain available in other countries. Last year, for instance, many (but not all) of the accounts and posts that were “withheld” this way in India were from accounts operated from other countries, or posting footage targeted by the Ministry of Railways.
The most up-to-date takedown stats from Meta show that the Instagram and Facebook parent took down three times as much content in response to government orders in January–June 2025 than in the same period in 2023. This number does not include content in India that was also taken down globally due to community standards violations. X does not publish transparency reports for government takedowns.
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting did not respond to questions from The Hindu on a sample of these takedown notices. Meta and X did not respond to a request for comment.
Posts that feature Mr. Modi prominently have been targeted with persistent takedown orders. When The Wire put out two satirical music videos featuring Mr. Modi, they were targeted with takedown notices on both X and Meta’s Instagram, and when the site’s founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan reposted the second cartoon, the repost was also taken down.
The Congress said satirical posts by the party that were AI-generated (and duly labelled as such, as required by the IT Rules, 2021’s latest amendment), were taken down. Nine posts were taken down in all, party spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said on February 14.
Numbers unclear
It is unclear just how many of these orders have been issued in recent weeks. Orders under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, are confidential, one senior official pointed out.
As for orders under Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act, where takedown notices can be sent to social media companies by law enforcement agencies, the timelines for losing “safe harbour” from legal liability for users’ posts has been shortened from 24–36 hours to 2–3 hours. One industry source said that while these orders aren’t binding, social media firms are left with “no choice” but to comply since they don’t have the time to determine if a post is actually illegal.
For all orders The Hindu reviewed — based on user posts — for the past month on X, the platform has notified users in particular that takedowns were issued under Section 69A of the IT Act. This particular disclosure has been absent in the past, with X more generically referring to a legal demand.
Pranesh Prakash, the founder of the Centre for Internet and Society, India and now an independent researcher, said these orders were “unconstitutional,” as they gave users little opportunity to be heard beforehand, and that there was no “public, reasoned order”. Before Elon Musk bought what was then called Twitter, the firm regularly uploaded details of such orders with a third party database accessible to researchers and journalists. Since that access has stopped, the volume of these orders cannot be determined.
In a 2024 article for the Indian Public Policy Review, Mr. Prakash argued that Rule 16 of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009, which provides for confidentiality of blocking orders under Section 69A, was in conflict with the Supreme Court’s Shreya Singhal v. Union of India judgment, where the court invalidated Section 66A, a broad prohibition on obscenity, and held that “reasons have to be recorded in writing in such blocking order[s] so that they may be assailed in a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution.”
On Instagram, an account belonging to the Hindu activist Sarthak Bhagat, who recently protested the murder of 26-year-old Tarun Bhutolia in Uttam Nagar, Delhi during Holi, and has over 2.7 lakh followers, was withheld in India. @woke_kashmiri, another right wing account with over 2 lakh followers, was also withheld with no explanation. Both accounts also spoke out against the University Grants Commission (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026.
Published – March 10, 2026 08:08 pm IST
