"India tells X to block over 8,000 accounts", 8 May 2025

The move appears to be part of India's sweeping crackdown targeting social media accounts of Pakistani politicians, celebrities and media organizations amid heightened tensions and deadly confrontations between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

The order, which X said includes demands to block international news organizations and other prominent users, comes a day after Meta banned a prominent Muslim news page on Instagram in India at New Delhi's request.

"X has received executive orders from the Indian government requiring X to block over 8,000 accounts in India, subject to potential penalties including significant fines and imprisonment of the company's local employees," the site's global government affairs team said in a statement.

It added that in most cases, the government had not specified which posts from the accounts violated Indian laws, and in many others, it provided no evidence or justification for the blocks.

The Elon Musk-owned platform said it disagreed with the demands but it had begun the process to withhold the specified accounts in India.

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X said it could not make the Indian executive orders public due to legal restrictions, but it encouraged the impacted users to seek "appropriate relief from the courts."

The move comes amid fierce exchanges of artillery between India and Pakistan that has killed more than 50 people, two weeks after New Delhi blamed Islamabad for backing a deadly attack on tourists in the Indian-run side of the disputed Muslim-majority region of Kashmir.

Pakistan rejects the charge.

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Rising hostilities between the South Asian neighbors have unleashed an avalanche of online misinformation, with social media users circulating everything from deepfake videos to outdated images from unrelated conflicts, falsely linking them to the ongoing fighting.