Government sent social media blocking orders every 68secs between March-July
What's the story
Between March and July this year, the Indian government issued an average of one blocking order every 68 seconds to social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. The data, accessed by The Indian Express (TIE), revealed that nearly 1.95 lakh orders were sent in this period. This included student protests at Delhi's Jantar Mantar against exam leaks from early June till July 25, when then Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigned.
Platform breakdown
Instagram most targeted platform
Of the three platforms, Instagram was the most targeted, with nearly 1 lakh blocking orders. Facebook followed with around 80,000 orders, while YouTube received nearly 15,000.
The blocking orders were mostly sent through the Home Ministry's Sahyog portal by various central and state agencies.
Each order can cover hundreds of individual pieces of content or accounts.
Compliance concerns
Automation raised concerns
To comply with the government's three-hour takedown timeline, Meta has integrated its API with the Sahyog portal. This allows automatic removal of flagged content without human review.
Digital rights activists have raised concerns over this automation, arguing it bypasses legal requirements for "actual knowledge" of lawful orders.
Apar Gupta from Internet Freedom Foundation criticized this system for turning conditional legal duties into unconditional compliance.
Landscape overview
Comparison with Indonesia
India is home to over 600 million social media users, with daily posts estimated between 10 million and 100 million.
However, the volume of posts doesn't always correlate with takedown notices.
For example, Meta took down over 23 million pieces of content in Indonesia during July-December 2025, despite having a smaller user base than India.
In contrast, India saw more than 41,000 pieces of content blocked by Meta during the same period.
Compliance challenges
Meta's user notification policy in India
Meta usually informs users about state authorities behind content restrictions based on legal requests, except in India due to "legal obligations and regulatory considerations."
The report cited industry insiders as saying that companies have to comply with government blocking orders faster than before due to recent amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
The amendments require content removal within 2-3 hours instead of the previous 24- 36-hour window.