PIB Fact Check Debunks Misleading Claims About Social Media Blocking Orders

The PIB Fact Check unit has described an Indian Express article on social media blocking orders as misleading.

The report claimed that authorities issued 1.95 lakh blocking orders to social media platforms, mainly Instagram, between March and July 2026. It linked an increase in such orders to the Delhi student protests at Jantar Mantar and suggested that Meta had automated the process.

PIB Fact Check rejected this interpretation and provided additional context on the government’s content-removal mechanism.

An article claims that Meta has automated content blocking to comply with the government’s three-hour takedown requirement, and that content blocks surged during the #Delhiprotests.#PIBFactCheck:

❌ The article is #Misleading.

✅ To expedite action against unlawful content,… pic.twitter.com/FrjhtN0vvI

— PIB Fact Check (@PIBFactCheck) August 20, 2026

An amendment to the Information Technology Rules in February 2026 reduced the permitted timeline for lawful content takedown from 36 hours to three hours. The change came amid growing concerns over deepfakes and harmful online material.

PIB clarified that Meta integrated its API with the Sahyog portal in 2025.

The company requested the integration to accelerate compliance with lawful content-removal requests.

The fact-check unit explained the scale of online activity in India. Around 600 million Indian users post content frequently across digital platforms.

Between March and July, authorities targeted 2.98 lakh URLs. States generated 82 per cent of these requests.

PIB said requests from the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) primarily addressed scams, child sexual abuse material and crimes against women and children.

Authorised channels review these requests before platforms take action.

The clarification therefore challenges the report’s suggestion that blocking orders primarily resulted from automated action by Meta or were connected to the Delhi student protests.

PIB Fact Check urged users to examine the full context behind figures involving online content regulation before drawing conclusions.

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