X blocks Reuters accounts in India

The principle Reuters information account, in addition to the Reuters World account, have apparently been inaccessible to X customers in India since Saturday night.

Reuters experiences that Indian customers making an attempt to view the @Reuters account — which has 25 million followers — as a substitute see a message stating that the account “has been withheld in IN (India) in response to a authorized demand.”

Nevertheless, an Indian authorities spokesperson informed Reuters that no authorities company has made such a requirement.

A Reuters spokesperson mentioned the information company is “working with X to resolve this matter.” Reuters additionally says its social media workforce beforehand obtained a notification from X in Could stating that the corporate was withholding content material on the Indian authorities’s request, although the notification didn’t specify which company made the request or which content material was being focused.

The social media platform previously generally known as Twitter (which not too long ago merged with one other Elon Musk firm, xAI) has criticized the Indian authorities over calls for that it block sure accounts and posts.

It even sued the federal government in March, claiming {that a} new web site permits “unrestrained censorship of data in India” by unlawfully enabling “numerous” public officers to take down content material or block accounts. The federal government mentioned the web site solely allowed it to inform corporations about dangerous on-line content material.

Final yr, X additionally engaged in a protracted battle with Brazil’s Supreme Courtroom, which noticed the service shut down operations within the nation, then get banned for greater than a month.

TechCrunch has reached out to X for remark.