India among countries where Meta ‘automatically’ blocks flagged content

India is now among a set of “limited countries” where Facebook and Instagram “automatically restrict content, at scale and based on local law requirements,” a company source told The Hindu. Meta, the parent firm of both social media platforms, has complied with censorship orders on a large scale in recent weeks, as the firm has been hit with a barrage of takedown notices from State police authorities as well as the Union government. Precise numbers of local law-related takedowns on the platforms will only be published by the firm in the second half of 2026.

The Sahyog portal, which provides a web link for authorised police officials around the country to send takedown notices to social media platforms, operates under Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, under which social media platforms could lose “safe harbour” for content posted by users, and end up defending themselves in court alongside the people whose content has been targeted by authorities.

X, formerly Twitter, has challenged the Sahyog portal in the Karnataka High Court, and does not comply with police takedown notices when it believes the content they target is lawful. Meta’s response, however, is to instantaneously restrict access in response to content that has been sent through this mechanism, giving police authorities wide powers of immediate and lasting censorship that they can exercise by merely filling out an online form.

Significantly, Meta does not put back content even when it eventually determines takedowns may be legally improper, instead asking the government for unblocking orders. It’s unclear how many unblocking orders it has been able to obtain.

Meta did not provide written responses to questions from The Hindu. The firm’s receptivity to non-binding takedown notices appears to have increased since the IT Ministry in February reduced timelines from 36 hours to a maximum of three hours. Non-compliance within this timeline would lead to a loss of safe harbour. Meta did not respond to a question on whether it conducts human rights evaluations on such takedowns. The help documentation on its site says it does such evaluations.

“Various apparatuses of the government have been issuing notices (not orders) providing ‘actual knowledge’ of violations of Indian law to platforms under Section 79(3)(b), most of which, when scrutinised, do not actually disclose any violation of any Indian law by the users,” Pranesh Prakash, co-founder of the Centre for Internet and Society, who is now a tech law and policy consultant, told The Hindu. Mr. Prakash said that users are seldom acted against personally in court, with the matter ending in the content takedown, which “show[s] … that the platforms would not be held liable either.”

“Yet, instead of fighting for their users, Meta is unthinkingly removing content it is legally not even required to remove,” Mr. Prakash said. “This is not new; a study by CIS conducted in 2012 showed that under the 2011 IT Rules also, intermediaries tended to remove any content that anyone complained about without any application of mind.”

Police authorities around the country have started using the Sahyog facility already. On April 1, Goa Police’s cybercrime department filed a one-page complaint against the entirety of deepakdialoguess, an Instagram account, for “posting objectionable/defaming content about prominent persons such as the Chief Minister of Goa”, without citing any individual posts. The account, which has over 1.5 lakh followers, has been blocked in India. The Hindu reviewed a copy of the takedown notice.

Nikhil Pahwa, editor of the MediaNama tech policy portal, said that recent moves by the government, which came mainly from a series of amendments to the IT Rules, 2021 over the last few months and years, constituted an “infrastructure of censorship” that was growing in scope. “The carriers of our speech are not accountable to anyone,” Mr. Pahwa said at an event on Thursday (April 23, 2026), referring to social media platforms. “They seem to be accountable only to the whims of the government. Our speech is being censored through them — because the government is unable to manage the speech of 800 million people online. And so it’s putting that liability on platforms.”

At the event, Sneha Jain, a partner at Saikrishna and Associates, said that Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, a Supreme Court judgment which holds takedown notices to a high standard of scrutiny before they’re issued, has been “diluted” over time. Social media platforms, she said, needed to hold the ground. “Intermediaries cannot be passive,” Ms. Jain said. “Their roles are not passive. Therefore their responsibilities and liabilities cannot be passive. They need to be responsible.”

At the event, Sneha Jain, a partner at Saikrishna and Associates, said that Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, a Supreme Court judgment which holds takedown notices to a high standard of scrutiny before they’re issued, has been “diluted” over time. Social media platforms, she said, needed to hold the ground. “Intermediaries cannot be passive,” Ms. Jain said. “Their roles are not passive. Therefore their responsibilities and liabilities cannot be passive. They need to be responsible.”