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X and IT ministry clash over blocking of Reuters accounts in India
'The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology demanded immediate action—within one hour—without providing justification and required the accounts to remain blocked until further notice,' the global government affairs team said in a post on X.
The IT ministry, however, said that it had 'not issued any fresh blocking order on 3rd July, 2025,' and had 'no intention to block any prominent international news channels, including Reuters and Reuters World.'
'The moment Reuters and Reuters World were blocked on the X platform in India, the government immediately wrote to X to unblock them. The government continuously engaged and vigorously pursued with X from the late night of 5th July 2025,' an official spokesperson of the IT ministry said.
The blocking of Reuters and Reuters World's accounts was part of the central government's July 3 request to block access to these two accounts, along with 2,355 other accounts, the global government affairs team said in its post. The unblocking of Reuters and Reuters World's accounts was requested by the government after 'public outcry,' the post claimed.
The IT ministry, however, said that the 'technicalities involved around the process were unnecessarily exploited and the URLs were not unblocked.'
'However, after a lot of follow-up on an 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 said.
In its post, X also expressed concern 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 global government affairs team said in its post.
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