Facebook temporarily hid posts with the hashtag #ResignModi for about three hours on Wednesday, Buzzfeed News reported. A Facebook spokesperson told MediaNama, "We temporarily blocked this hashtag by mistake, not because the Indian government asked us to, and have since restored it.” The social media platform did not respond to MediaNama's question on what led to such a mistake. https://twitter.com/DilliDurAst/status/1387466338067648521?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1387466338067648521%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.buzzfeednews.com%2Farticle%2Fryanmac%2Ffacebook-blocking-posts-hashtag-resign-modi This block comes at a time when social media censorship by the Indian government is at an unprecedented high. Last Saturday, MediaNama reported on Twitter censoring 52 tweets criticizing the government's handling of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The blocked tweets contain tweets by well-known personalities including an MP and an MLA. A few days after this incident, Wall Street Journal reported that over 100 posts across Twitter and Facebook were blocked on government orders. These incidents have caused a public outrage against the Indian government. While the government has the powers to issue such orders under section 69A of India’s Information Technology Act, it has recently been given even more say in this matter by the new Information Technology (IT) Rules, 2021. Facebook initially said that posts calling for the resignation of the Prime Minister were hidden because some content in those posts went against its Community Standards, but did not specify which content violated rules nor which rules were violated. Facebook reversed its decision after about three hours and allowed users to find posts with the hashtag, the report stated. The posts were not only hidden in India, but in United…
