Our Bureau
New Delhi
The issue between the Central Government of India and social media platform X has expanded more than what people would have expected. The social media platform owned by Elon Musk has claimed that the central government had issued an order on 3rd July to block 2,355 accounts including international news agency Reuters and Reuters World.
However, the Indian government has refuted any such claims and stated that they had issued no such orders to the social media platform on 3rd July. They also clarified they had no intentions to block international news channels. They even accused X of exploiting technicalities and not unblocking reuters despite constant pursues from the government.
“The government has not issued any fresh blocking order on 3rd July, 2025 and has no intention to block any prominent international news channels including Reuters and Reuters World. The moment Reuters and Reuters World were blocked on X platform in India, immediately the government wrote to ‘X’ to unblock them,” the spokesperson said.
“The government continuously engaged and vigorously pursued ‘X’ from the late night of 5th July 2025. ‘X’ has unnecessarily exploited technicalities involved around the process and didn’t unblock the URLs. However, after a lot of follow-up on hourly basis, X has finally unblocked Reuters and other URLs after 9 pm on 6th July 2025. They took more than 21 hours to unblock Reuters,” the spokesperson added.
Elon Musk owned companies on the other end have shown concerns about the press censorship in India due to the continuous blocking orders. They persisted with their end of the story and reported that the government had ordered them to block these outlets under Section 69A of the IT Act. The orders to unblock however came only after there was a huge backlash from the public.
“On July 3, 2025, the Indian government ordered X to block 2,355 accounts in India, including international news outlets like Reuters and Reuters World, under Section 69A of the IT Act. Non-compliance risked criminal liability,” X’s Global Government Affairs team said in a post today.
“After public outcry, the government requested X to unblock Reuters and Reuters World. We are deeply concerned about ongoing press censorship in India due to these blocking orders. X is exploring all legal options available. Unlike users located in India, X is restricted by Indian law in its ability to bring legal challenges against these executive orders. We urge affected users to pursue legal remedies through the courts,” the company added.
