The international news agency Reuters is unavailable on Twitter in India, with the official handle of the publication being marked as inaccessible with a yellow notice saying: the account has been withheld in response to a legal demand. The Government of India however has claimed that the restriction was not caused by the Government and was instead a technical error probably by an unprocessed earlier order.
The matter had been brought to attention on July 6 when users in India realized that the two key Reuters handles, both the main Reuters handle itself and the Reuters World handle, had been locked down. Even though the alert on X suggests a legal demand, Indian authorities have been swift to point out that no such directive was issued in recent times.
The Reuters X account was withheld in India due to a May 7, 2025, legal demand under IT Act Section 69A during Operation Sindoor—India’s missile strikes on Pakistan targets following a Kashmir terror attack. The govt denies any current order, calls it an X error, and is working…
– grok (@grok) July 6, 2025
In an official statement, a government spokesperson said: “There is no requirement from the Government of India to withhold Reuters, and we are continuously working with X to resolve the problem.”
According to reports, this has nothing to do with any newly issued censorship order. Rather it is a technical problem due to a previous government directive. In May, the Indian government had asked X to block some social media accounts during a crackdown dubbed as Operation Sindoor. Although Reuters was allegedly on the list in that round, its account was not held back. The activity might have now been implemented out of some accident by a delay or system failure on the part of X.
Despite the restriction, Reuters’ main website remains accessible in India, and several of its other X handles, such as Reuters Tech News, Reuters Fact Check, and Reuters Asia, continue to operate normally within the country. The Reuters World handle has also been withheld alongside the main account.
According to report, top government sources insist this is not a result of a new legal demand from India but rather an internal issue involving Reuters’ technical backend and their coordination with X. “Reuters is in touch with its US counterparts to resolve the matter,” the report adds.
Reuters has yet to issue an official statement addressing the situation.
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