Now Reading: Meta blocks protest reels in India as government pressure mounts
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Meta blocks protest reels in India as government pressure mounts
Instagram has ramped up censorship of political and protest-related content after tense meetings between Meta's leadership and the Union government, The Hindu reports. Posts by the Indian Youth Congress, Arvind Kejriwal, Cockroach…
The Story in Brief
Instagram has ramped up censorship of political and protest-related content after tense meetings between Meta's leadership and the Union government, The Hindu reports. Posts by the Indian Youth Congress, Arvind Kejriwal, Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) spokesperson Saurav Das, and Scroll.in have been blocked in India. Das alleged his Instagram content was restricted, calling the move unconstitutional. Meta is complying with takedown requests under Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Rules, 2021, bypassing safeguards required under Section 69A. Many requests are filed through the Home Ministry's Sahyog portal.
The Indian Opinion
The easy narrative pits a heavy-handed government against a free-speech platform. But the real problem is Meta's automatic compliance with executive requests, skipping court oversight entirely. As Pranesh Prakash pointed out, platforms are not even legally bound to remove such content. The Sahyog portal creates a parallel takedown system without transparency or due process. A concrete test: will Meta now release the number of removal requests it received from Sahyog, and will it challenge any of them?
Sources (2): timesnownews.com, thehindu.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the 2 sources linked above.
Updated: this story now draws on 2 sources.
