X withholds public access to Reuters and Reuters World accounts in India

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X, formerly Twitter, withheld public access to official handles of Reuters and Reuters World in India on Sunday morning despite the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) saying there’s no requirement from the Government of India to withhold the handle.

The two handles were withheld in India by X “in response to a legal demand,” said a notification on the platform.

On May 9, X had withheld its own Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) account within India. This occurred hours after X, through this account, had tweeted on the night of May 8 that the Indian government had directed X to block over 8,000 accounts in India.

Later, X unblocked the Global Government Affairs account.

“There is no requirement from the Government of India to withhold Reuters handle. We are continuously working with X to resolve the problem,” an official spokesperson for MeitY said in a statement.

X and MeitY did not respond to ET’s requests for comment on the reason for withholding these accounts in the country.

The Elon Musk-owned microblogging platform has sued the Indian government in the Karnataka High Court over previous blocking orders sent by the government under a section of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000 without adequate safeguards. The final hearing in the case is scheduled July 8.

X has made a plea to amend its petition filed in the Karnataka High Court four months ago, making an additional demand to scrap Rule 3(1)(d) of the Information Technology Rules that empowers government agencies to order intermediaries to remove content from their platforms.

The original petition, filed in March, had sought the court to declare that Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act, 2000 does not authorise the government to issue information blocking orders to intermediaries, or social media platforms, like X.

Section 79(3)(b) provides for authorities to remove immunity from liability accorded to intermediaries if they failed to comply with orders to take down unlawful content. In conjunction with Rule 3(1)(d) of the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, it also allows them to issue takedown orders.

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