In January, an
old post on Elon Musk’s social media platform, X, became a
concern for police in the Indian city of Satara. Written in
2023, the short message from an account with a few hundred
followers described a senior ruling-party politician as
“useless”.
“This post and content are likely to create serious communal
tension,” inspector Jitendra Shahane wrote in a content-removal
notice marked “CONFIDENTIAL” and addressed to X.
The post, which remains online, is among hundreds cited by X
in a lawsuit it filed in March against India’s government,
challenging a sweeping crackdown on social media content by
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration.
Since 2023, India has ramped up efforts to police the
internet by allowing many more officials to file takedown orders
and to submit them directly to tech firms through a government
website launched in October.
X argues India’s actions are illegal and unconstitutional,
and that they trample free speech by empowering scores of
government agencies and thousands of police to suppress
legitimate criticism of public officials.
India contends in court documents that its approach tackles
a proliferation of unlawful content and ensures accountability
online. It says many tech companies, including Meta and
Alphabet’s Google, support its actions. Both companies
declined to comment for this story.
Musk, who calls himself a free-speech absolutist, has clashed
with authorities in the United States, Brazil, Australia and
elsewhere over compliance and takedown demands. But as
regulators globally weigh free-speech protections against
concerns about harmful content, Musk’s case against Modi’s
government in the Karnataka High Court targets the entire basis
for tightened internet censorship in India, one of X’s biggest
user bases. Musk said in 2023 that the South Asian nation had
“more promise than any large country in the world” and that Modi
had pushed him to invest there.
This account of the behind-the-scenes battle between the
world’s richest person and authorities in the world’s most
populous country is based on a Reuters review of 2,500 pages of
non-public legal filings and interviews with seven police
officers involved in content-removal requests. It reveals the
workings of a takedown system shrouded in secrecy, some Indian
officials’ ire over “illegal” material on X, and the broad
spectrum of content that police and other agencies have sought
to censor.
While the takedown orders include many that sought to
counter misinformation, they also encompass directives by Modi’s
administration to remove news about a deadly stampede, and
demands from state police to scrub cartoons that depicted the
prime minister in an unfavourable light or mocked local
politicians, the filings show.
X didn’t respond to Reuters questions about the case, while
India’s IT ministry declined to comment because the matter was
before the court. Modi’s office and his home ministry didn’t
respond to questions.
There have been no immediate signs of souring personal
relations between Musk and Modi, who have enjoyed a warm public
rapport. But the showdown comes as the South African-born
entrepreneur, whose business empire includes EV maker Tesla
and satellite internet provider Starlink, gears up to
expand both ventures in India.
Even supporters of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have
faced scrutiny of their online musings from police officials
newly empowered by the IT ministry to target social media
activity.
Koustav Bagchi, a lawyer and BJP member, posted an image on
X in March that depicted a rival, West Bengal chief minister
Mamata Banerjee, in an astronaut suit. State police issued a
takedown notice, citing “risks to public safety and national
security”.
Bagchi told Reuters the post, which is still online, was
“light-hearted” and that he wasn’t aware of the takedown order.
The chief minister’s office and state police didn’t respond to
Reuters queries.
Of the earlier 2023 post, Shahane, the Satara police
officer, told Reuters he couldn’t recall the takedown order, but
said police sometimes proactively ask platforms to block
offensive viral content.
‘CENSORSHIP PORTAL’
For years, only India’s IT and Information & Broadcasting
ministries could order content removal, and only for threats to
sovereignty, defense, security, foreign relations, public order,
or incitement. Some 99 officials across India could recommend
takedowns, but the ministries had the final say.
While that mechanism remains in place, Modi’s IT ministry in
2023 empowered all federal and state agencies and police to
issue takedown notices for “any information which is prohibited
under any law”. They could do so under existing legal
provisions, the ministry said in a directive, citing the need
for “effective” content removal.
Companies that fail to comply can lose immunity for user
content, making them liable for the same penalties a user might
face – which could vary greatly depending on the specific
material posted.
Modi’s government went a step further in October 2024. It
launched a website called Sahyog – Hindi for collaboration – to
“facilitate” the issuance of takedown notices, and asked Indian
officials and social media firms to get on board, memos
contained in court papers show.
X didn’t join Sahyog, which it has called a “censorship portal”,
and sued the government earlier this year, challenging the legal
basis for both the new website and the IT ministry’s 2023
directive.
In a June 24 filing, X said some of the blocking orders
issued by officials “target content involving satire or
criticism of the ruling government, and show a pattern of abuse
of authority to suppress free speech.”
Some free-speech advocates have criticised the government’s
stricter takedown regime, saying it is designed to stifle
dissent.
“Can a claim that some content is unlawful be termed as
indeed unlawful merely because the government claims so?” said
Subramaniam Vincent, director of journalism and media ethics at
Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.
“The executive branch cannot be both the arbiter of legality
of media content, and the issuer of takedown notices.”
RED DINOSAUR
Court filings reviewed by Reuters show federal and state
agencies ordered X to remove around 1,400 posts or accounts
between March 2024 and June 2025.
More than 70% of these removal notices were issued by the
Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre, which developed the
Sahyog website. The agency is within the home ministry, which is
headed by Modi aide Amit Shah, a powerful figure in the ruling
BJP.
To counter X in court, India’s government filed a 92-page
report drafted by the cybercrime unit to show X is “hosting
illegal content”. The unit analysed nearly 300 posts it deemed
unlawful, including misinformation, hoaxes, and child
sexual-abuse material.
X serves as a vehicle for “spreading hate and division” that
threatens social harmony, while “fake news” on the platform has
sparked unspecified law-and-order issues, the agency said in the
report.
The government’s response to X’s lawsuit highlighted
examples of misinformation.
In January, the cybercrime unit asked X to remove three
posts containing what officials said were fabricated images that
portrayed Shah’s son, International Cricket Council chairman Jay
Shah, “in a derogatory manner” alongside a bikini-clad woman.
The posts “dishonour prominent office bearers and VIPs”, the
notices said.
Two of those posts remain online. Jay Shah didn’t respond to
Reuters queries.
Other directives went beyond targeting fake news.
X told the court India’s railways ministry has been issuing
orders to censor press reports about matters of public interest.
These included February directives seeking the removal of posts
by some media outlets, including two by Adani Group’s NDTV
, that contained news coverage of stampede at New
Delhi’s biggest railway station that left 18 dead.
The NDTV posts are still online. NDTV didn’t respond to
Reuters queries and the railways ministry declined to comment.
In April, police in Chennai asked X to remove many “deeply
offensive” and “provocative” posts, including a now-inaccessible
cartoon featuring a red dinosaur labelled “inflation”, which
portrayed Modi and the chief minister of Tamil Nadu state as
struggling to control prices.
The same month, police demanded the removal of another
cartoon that mocked the state government’s lack of preparedness
for floods by showing a boat with holes. X told the judge the
cartoon was posted in November, and it could not “incite
political tensions” several months later, as the Chennai police
asserted. The post remains online.
The state government didn’t respond to a request for
comment.
When Reuters visited the Chennai cybercrime police station
that issued these directives, Deputy Commissioner B. Geetha
criticised X for seldom acting on takedown requests.
X does not “fully grasp the cultural sensitivities”, she
said. “What may be acceptable in some countries can be<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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