International news agency Reuters’ X account was withheld in India for a few hours but restored later on Sunday after the government intervened to say it had not sought the blocking of the handle.
Reuters’ X account was blocked from being accessed in India overnight, leading to speculations.
The government asked the Elon Musk-owned platform for an explanation and said that it had not sought such a move. X restored access to the account shortly after.
The Reuters account remain blocked for nearly 24 hours, from Saturday evening to Sunday evening.
The notice displayed on X till Sunday evening showed that Reuters’ X account had been withheld in India “in response to a legal demand”.
However, a government spokesperson said no legal requirement was made to withhold the account.
Earlier in the day, sources said a demand for blocking the account alongside several hundreds of other accounts was made during Operation Sindoor in May. While many of them were blocked, the Reuters handle wasn’t.
X seems to have now acted on that request and blocked Reuters’ handle in India. And since the issue isn’t relevant now, the government has asked X to explain the blocking and lift the embargo, they said.
The official accounts of Chinese media organisation Global Times and Turkish media house TRT World on X were also blocked again citing a legal demand, which the government said was not required now.
“There is no requirement from the government of India to withhold the Global Times News/trtworld handle. We are continuously working with X to resolve the problem,” the spokesperson had said.
On random check, it was found that Chinese Xinhua News and some other media outlets, that were also blocked during Operation Sindoor, continued to be accessible.
“An order was issued on May 7 (during Operation Sindoor) but it was not enforced. X seems to have enforced that order now which is a mistake on their part. Government has reached out to X for resolving it at the earliest,” an official source said.
An e-mail sent to Reuters seeking comments did not elicit a response.
While affiliated X handles such as Reuters Tech News, Reuters Fact Check, Reuters Asia, and Reuters China were accessible in India, both official X accounts of the global news agency as well as Reuters World handles were inaccessible earlier.
X users attempting to access the main account could see a message that read: “Account withheld. @ Reuters has been withheld in IN in response to a legal demand.”
On its help centre page, X explains such messages “about country withheld content” means X was compelled to withhold the entire account specified or posted in response to a valid legal demand, such as a court order or local laws.
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Margarett Pecora