- India has ordered X to block over 8,000 accounts, the social media company said on 8 May 2025
- X considered India’s orders as censorship and invited account holders to legally challenge blocks
- Both India and Pakistan have intensified internet censorship as the conflict between the two countries continues to escalate
India has issued executive orders to X and asked the social media company to block over 8,000 accounts across the country. The goals, explains X explains, includes accounts that belong to international news organizations and prominent X users.
XS Global Government Affairs -Team revealed the details of a long tweet on Thursday, May 8, 2025, which assesses these requests as “censorship” and called for account holders based in India to legally challenge blocks.
“Blocking entire accounts is not only unnecessary, it corresponds to censorship of existing and future content and is contrary to the basic right of freedom of expression,” wrote X.
X disagrees but it is “limited by Indian law”
“To comply with the orders, we detain the specified accounts in India alone. We have begun this process,” wrote X, adding that the company disagrees with the Indian government’s requirements.
However, this means that blocked account holders may be able to keep access to the platform by using one of the best VPN services to decay their IP address location.
“X explores all sorts of legal options available to the company. Unlike users located in India, X is limited by Indian law in its ability to bring legal challenges against these executive orders,” the company added, while all users influenced appropriate relief from the courts.
The social media company even shared a list of legal aid organizations that could help people challenge these blocking orders and claimed it had notified those who were affected by these actions.
XS Global Government Affairs was temporarily detained in India, as reported by Indian technological journalist Adit Agrawal on her LinkedIn account.
The account was restored Friday morning. According to someone who was aware of the case, Agrawal reported that X blocked the account without an official order after the authorities asked the company about the tweet.
“Now I have published an order for X not to block it, according to this person,” Agrawal wrote.
India/Pakistan Information Crackdown
XS blocking orders coincide with an increase in internet censorship across the country as the conflict with nearby Pakistan intensifies.
On Wednesday, May 7, Meta also blocked a major Muslim news site on Instagram at the request of the authority, as reported by The Guardian.
On Thursday, India’s Ministry of Information and TV spread also issued an advisory call for all media companies, streaming services and online platforms to block all content that originated in Pakistan.
On its part, Pakistan has resumed access to X Wednesday after a 15 -month long ban.
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) also blocked access to at least 16 YouTube news channels and 32 sites from India on the same day for allegedly spread wrong information and anti-Pakistan propaganda.
As reported by the BBC, India and Pakistan accuse each other of escalating military tensions and have both launched a number of missiles and drone strikes since Wednesday. This represents a greater escalation of existing tension over the disputed area of Kashmir between the two nuclear armed countries.
