The Centre on Tuesday denied claims made by X that it had ordered the blocking of news agency Reuters’ account, clarifying that no such directive was issued on July 3.
The clarification came shortly after Elon Musk-owned X claimed that the Indian government had directed it to block 2,355 accounts within the country, including that of Reuters.
According to Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) spokesperson, the government said it had no intention of restricting access to any prominent international news channel, including including Reuters and ReutersWorld. It further added that as soon as it became aware of the issue, it promptly reached out to X to request immediate unblocking of the URLs.
“The Government continuously engaged and vigorously pursued with ‘X’ from the late night of 5th July 2025. ‘X’ has un-necessarily exploited technicalities involved around the process and didn’t unblock the URLs. However, after 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,” said the spokesperson.
In the aftermath of Operation Sindoor, India had issued a flurry of order to takedown tweets and block accounts, in response to national security concerns.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk-owned social media platform X on Tuesday expressed deep concern about “ongoing press censorship” in India, days after global news agency Reuters' account was 'withheld' in the country.
Apart from Reuters, accounts of other international news agencies such as Turkey’s TRT World and China’s Global Times News were also not visible in India since Saturday evening. However, all the accounts were restored within 24 hours.
"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," posted X's Global Government Affairs account.
These claims contradicted an earlier statement from MeitY, which had said that there was no requirement from the Centre to withhold Reuters’ handle and that it was continuously working with X to resolve the issue.
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