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130 Content Censorship Notices Issued Under Home Ministry's Sahyog Portal Since October: Report

The notices fall outside Section 69(A) of the Information Technology Act, that has been commonly used to issue online censorship orders.
The Wire Staff
Apr 22 2025
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The notices fall outside Section 69(A) of the Information Technology Act, that has been commonly used to issue online censorship orders.
Ministry of Home Affairs. Photo: File
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New Delhi: Between October 2024 and April 8, 2025, the Union government has issued 130 content notices to online platforms like Google, YouTube, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft, among others.

As per data received through an RTI application, these notices, issued under the Home Ministry’s Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C)-led Sahyog portal, act as content blocking orders and are sent under Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, 2000, reported The Indian Express.

The notices fall outside Section 69(A) of the Information Technology Act, that has been commonly used to issue online censorship orders.

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The number received through the RTI do not reflect the notices sent to Elon Musk-owned X under Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act.

Social media platform X is yet to join the Sahyog portal, which was launched last year to expedite the process of sending notices. X has, in fact, sued the government over this, calling it a “censorship” portal.

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 X Corp, which runs the micro-blogging platform X (formerly Twitter), had earlier told the Delhi high court that it cannot be compelled to come onboard the Union government’s SAHYOG portal, which apparently aims to combat cybercrime, arguing that it “has its own portal to process valid legal requests”.

Pointing to the Supreme Court’s judgement in the Shreya Singal vs. Union of India case, X Corp had argued that the portal falls outside the statutory scheme of Section 69A of the IT Act, 2000, which gives the government power to order online platforms to block information in specific circumstances, the daily reported.

This article went live on April twenty-second, two thousand twenty five, at seventeen minutes past eleven in the morning.

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