As many as 4,987 URLs were blocked under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act by the Indian government between January 2022 and October 2022, said the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology in reply to an RTI filed by MediaNama. Replying to an RTI about the number of orders issued to intermediaries under Section 69A, the Ministry said, “The Committee constituted under Rule (7) of the Rules 2009 had recommended for issuing blocking directions issued to intermediaries to block a total of 4987 URLs during Jan 2022 to Oct 2022… which include all type of URLs, i.e. webpages, websites, specific pages on social media platforms, etc.” Comparing RTI findings with previous reportage: On January 12, 2023, the Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC.in) said in a report that 22,447 websites, URLs, applications, and social media posts were taken down under the same section between January 2015 and September 2022. While the duration in MediaNama’s RTI includes October 2022, a comparison with the SFLC.in report shows that the first 10 months of 2022 accounted for a little over 20 percent of the content taken down in the last seven years. Why this matters: Section 69A of the IT Act, 2000 allows the government to block information from public access under specific conditions—(i) interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, (ii) defence of India, (iii) security of the State, (iv) friendly relations with foreign States or (v) public order or (vi) for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognizable offense relating…
