The government sent nearly 1.95 lakh blocking orders to social media platforms between March and July this year, averaging one order every 68 seconds, according to a report by The Indian Express.
The report,
citing data it accessed, mentioned that around 1,275 such directions were issued every day to Instagram, Facebook and YouTube during the five months.
The sharp increase comes against the backdrop of several developments, including the students’ protests against alleged exam leaks at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar.
The protests began in early June and were called off on July 25 following the resignation of then Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.
Instagram Received The Most Orders
Of the three platforms examined by The Indian Express, Instagram received the highest number of government blocking directions.
The platform was sent nearly 1 lakh orders between March and July, accounting for more than half of the total.
Facebook received around 80,000 orders, while YouTube received nearly 15,000.
Together, Instagram and Facebook, both owned by Meta, accounted for roughly nine out of every 10 orders issued to the three platforms.
The report noted that a single blocking order can cover hundreds of individual pieces of content or accounts.
A majority of the orders were issued through the Home Ministry’s Sahyog portal, a platform developed for sending content-blocking notices by various Central and state agencies.
A senior government official was quoted by the report as saying that a “considerable share” of the orders were issued during the students’ protests as they gathered momentum, particularly on Instagram.
Sharp Rise Compared To Earlier Data
The scale of the increase becomes clearer when compared with figures obtained by the report through RTI records last year.
Between October 2024 and October 2025, a total of 2,312 blocking orders were sent to 19 online platforms through the Sahyog portal. That translated into an average of just six orders a day.
By comparison, nearly 1.95 lakh orders were sent to Instagram, Facebook and YouTube alone in the five months from March to July this year.
The Home Ministry’s 2024-25 annual report also recorded that slightly more than 1.11 lakh pieces of “suspicious online content” had been blocked until March 2025 under Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, including through the Sahyog portal.
Meta Integrated With Sahyog Portal
The report also highlighted how Meta has responded to the government’s faster takedown requirements.
According to the report, Meta has integrated its API, or Application Programming Interface, with the Sahyog portal to meet the government-mandated three-hour timeline for removing flagged content.
Under this arrangement, content identified through government directions uploaded on the portal can be automatically removed from Meta’s platforms without a separate human review by the company.
This means Meta does not get an opportunity to independently review or contest the takedown directive before complying with it, according to the report.
What Content Was Targeted?
Information shared by users on social media indicated that some of the content targeted on Instagram included posts supporting the students’ protests, criticism of the government’s ethanol fuel blending policy and content linked to the West Bengal Assembly elections.
Deepfakes were also among the content mentioned.
The blocking directions discussed in the report are separate from those issued under Section 69(A) of the IT Act.
The latter is used for online censorship directions and is largely restricted to matters involving national security and public order.
Government And Platforms Yet To Respond
India has more than 600 million social media users, while estimates cited in the report put the volume of daily social media posts in the country between 10 million and 100 million.
However, the report noted that the volume of content posted does not necessarily correspond directly with the number of government takedown requests.
Meta’s latest transparency report showed that it removed more than 23 million pieces of content in Indonesia between July and December 2025, while in India it removed more than 41,000 pieces during the same period.
The India figure was more than double the 28,000 pieces blocked between January and June 2025.
Meta has said that when it restricts content based on legal requests from governments or courts, it generally informs users about the state authority that made the request.
However, it does not provide that information in India and some other markets, citing “legal obligations and regulatory considerations”.
