Posts by journalists, political parties, activists and media organisations are increasingly being restricted or taken down on platforms such as Meta and X, following government notices issued under Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act. This trend has raised concerns over transparency, due process and press freedom in India. 

The stakes are particularly high for journalists and creators who don’t have institutional backing, according to freelance journalist Sachin Gupta. “When we share hate speech or violence on social media, the government should take cognisance of those posts and take action against the people making the hate speech, rather than against those who are posting or sharing it. This is, in a way, an attempt to eliminate the messenger so that such things do not come out.”

Between July and December 2025, Meta restricted over 41,000 pieces of content in India, which is nearly triple the number recorded a year earlier, according to its report on content restrictions in India. More recent figures will be published at the end of this month, according to a Meta employee Newslaundry spoke to. In light of a police drive to weed out abusive Jantar Mantar videos, there are accusations of a surge in restrictions.  

Sachin Gupta pointed to a lack of clarity around such restrictions and said, “Independent and freelance journalists and social media creators who do not have a platform to publish their news or information use social media to post it. If you get such posts deleted or removed, where will these people go?”

X sent Sachin Gupta two takedown notices

Sachin Gupta received two notices from X seeking the removal of two of his posts. One notice was from Saharanpur Police and the second was from Muzaffarnagar Police.

Gupta said inspector-rank officers sent both notices. He claimed that when he contacted senior officers in both districts, they said they had no information about the inspector-level officers having issued instructions to remove his posts. One of the posts contained a video of Hindutva activist Pinki Chaudhary, in which he is seen announcing that he’ll perform a Hindu ritual at Darul Uloom Deoband, an Islamic seminary. The second video was about the recent Kanwar Yatra, in which Kanwariyas had blocked the Delhi-Haridwar highway. The Muzaffarnagar Police claimed that the video was promoting violence.

On Meta’s platforms, posts by journalist Santosh Pathak, Alt News co-founder and fact-checker Mohammad Zubair, media organisations Scroll and The Hindu, the Indian Youth Congress, Arvind Kejriwal, the Aam Aadmi Party, Ashutosh Ranka and Saurav Das of the CJP and Rofl Gandhi (Parody) have also been flagged in the context of the ongoing restrictions and takedowns.

Scroll said one of its posts on Instagram had been made unavailable in India. According to it, the report was about how most pellet gun victims in Kashmir had not received........

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