NEWS DELHI: X has received executive orders from the Indian government requiring the social media platform to block over 8,000 accounts in the country, subject to potential penalties including significant fines and imprisonment of the company’s local employees.

The orders include demands to block access in India to accounts belonging to international news organisations and prominent X users.

In most cases, the Indian government has not specified which posts from an account have violated India’s local laws. For a significant number of accounts, we did not receive any evidence or justification to block the accounts.

To comply with the orders, we will withhold the specified accounts in India alone. We have begun that process.

Published in Dawn, May 9th, 2025