Govt issued 6,775 content blocking orders in 2022: MeitY

When compared to 2021, there was a 11 percent increase in blocking orders issued under the IT Rules 2009

At a time when the Union government has blocked several digital lending apps from app stores and their websites, the government on February 8 announced that it issued 6,775 blocking orders in 2022.

When compared to 2021, there was a 11 percent increase in blocking orders issued under the IT Rules 2009, also known as the Blocking Rules, data provided by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in the Parliament showed.

However, it was 2020 which saw the highest number of blocking orders from the government with 9,849 such directions being issued.

Last year, microblogging platform Twitter sued the Indian government regarding few of such blocking orders that the government had sent to the platform.

Twitter in their petition at the Karnataka High Court had said that few of those orders don't fall under the ambit of Sec 69A of the IT Act.

Under Sec 69A, the Central government can issue blocking orders to platforms like Twitter under specific ground such as interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India and so on.

Meanwhile the government also informed that 53 meetings were held by a committee (as per the Blocking Rule) in 2022 for hearing and examining the orders.

On February 8, several digital digital lenders met officials of the IT ministry in relation to blocking of their websites and on platforms such as Google Play Store.