X Contradicts Govt, Says It Was Ordered to Ban 2,355 Accounts, Including Reuters

Elon Musk’s social media platform X has claimed that India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) ordered it to block 2,355 accounts in India on 3 July, including the handles of international news outlet Reuters. This claim contradicts the ministry’s earlier statement, in which it said no such requests were made.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, X escalated its battle with the government over content blocking powers, saying it is “deeply concerned about ongoing press censorship in India due to these blocking orders.”

“On 3 July 2025, the Indian government ordered X to block 2,355 accounts in India, including international news outlets like @Reuters and @ReutersWorld, under Section 69A of the IT Act. Non-compliance risked criminal liability,” X stated via its Global Government Affairs handle.

It added that MeitY had demanded immediate action—within one hour—without providing justification and required the accounts to remain blocked until further notice.

X further claimed that after public outcry, the government requested the platform to unblock the Reuters accounts.

“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 statement added.

Last week, an official spokesperson of the ministry told CNN-News18 that there seemed to be “a confusion or a technical issue” on the part of X, adding that the government had not asked X to block Reuters in the country. The spokesperson noted that many other Reuters handles remain active, indicating the government wishes the agency to continue its operations in India.

On Tuesday, again an spokesperson, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology said, "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 statment further added that the moment Reuters and Reuters World were blocked on X platform in India, immediately the government wrote to ‘X’ to unblock them. The Government continuously engaged and vigorously pursued with ‘X’ from the late night of July 5 2025.

"X has unnecessarily 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," the official noted.

In March 2025, X (formerly Twitter) sued the Indian government in the Karnataka High Court, challenging what it called an expansion of “censorship powers” through a platform called Sahyog. X alleged that the government was issuing content takedown orders under Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act—bypassing the judicial safeguards laid out in the Supreme Court’s Section 69A judgment and violating constitutional rights to free speech and equality.