Earlier today, Meta restricted the Instagram accounts (“Platform”) of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), its national convener Arvind Kejriwal, and Mohammed Zubair, co-founder of AltNews.
Over the past week, along with these instances, SFLC.in has also recorded several instances of content takedowns faced by media organisations including PeekTV, cartoonists such as Rakesh Ranjan and Vishal Mishra, and Saurav Das – Cockroach Janta Party’s spokesperson.
According to the publicly available information, the affected posts were restricted pursuant to the “legal requests” received by the Platform. In many cases, users are provided little or no meaningful explanation about the legal or factual basis of the restriction or what steps they can take to challenge the decision. Such opaque moderation practices undermine users’ ability to understand how platform policies are enforced and make it difficult to distinguish between legitimate moderation and arbitrary or inconsistent decision-making. This is especially concerning where the affected content relates to political expression, criticism of public authorities, or peaceful protest, all of which occupy a central place in democratic discourse.
The Supreme Court of India upheld the constitutionality of Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (“IT Act”), on the basis that the statutory framework required that blocking orders be reasoned, necessary, and proportionate, and that such reasons must be recorded in writing to enable judicial review. By contrast, in most of these cases, notices sent to social media intermediaries through the Sahyog Portal under Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act and Rule 3(1)(d) of the IT Rules, 2021, leave users in the dark, with no recourse to meaningfully challenge takedowns and leave affected parties without legal redressal. The Sahyog Portal puts in place a parallel system to take down content online, without any of the safeguards present under Section 69A.
SFLC.in has consistently advocated against these practices. We are concerned that this takedown drive is contrary to the rule of law and to India’s constitutional commitment to freedom of speech under Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution.
While private platforms are not directly bound by the Constitution in the same manner as the State, their content moderation decisions increasingly influence the digital spaces in which democratic participation takes place. This places a heightened responsibility on platforms to ensure that their moderation processes are transparent, consistently applied, and accompanied by adequate procedural safeguards, including notice, reasons for enforcement actions, and effective mechanisms for review. At the same time, any direction issued by public authorities requiring platforms to restrict lawful online speech must comply with constitutional safeguards and the legal procedures prescribed under Indian law. Informal or opaque restrictions on political speech or press freedom undermine public trust and democratic accountability.
In light of the above, SFLC.in calls for the following:
- Immediate disclosure of all takedown orders issued to platforms, including specific reasons and legal justifications.
- Strict adherence to the procedural safeguards laid out under Section 69A and the 2009 Blocking Rules, under the IT Act, which were upheld by the Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India.
- Notices received by social media intermediaries to be sent to every user affected to ensure transparency.
- Strengthening of independent oversight and appellate mechanisms to ensure that users can effectively challenge unlawful restrictions.
- Greater transparency from platforms regarding the number, nature, source, and outcome of governmental requests/orders for content removal and account restriction.
