India Unblocks X Accounts Of China’s Global Times, TRT World And Reuters

The X accounts of international media organisations Reuters, TRT World and Global Times, were restored on Sunday after being withheld a day before.

"At this time, we are no longer withholding access in INDIA to your account," X said in an email to the Reuters social media team.

Reuters reported on Sunday that a spokesperson for the Indian government's Press Information Bureau said that the request for withholding the Reuters X account did not come from an Indian government agency, adding that officials were working with X to resolve the problem.

Another X account, Reuters World, which is also operated by the news agency and was blocked in India, was also restored late Sunday night. Meanwhile, the main Reuters account with more than 25 million followers globally, was also blocked in India since Saturday night. A notice told X users that "@Reuters has been withheld in IN (India) in response to a legal demand".

The Reuters social media team on May 16 received an email in which X said: "It is our policy to notify account holders if we receive a legal request from an authorized entity (such as law enforcement or a government agency) to remove content from their account."

"In order to comply with X obligations under India's local laws, we have withheld your X account in India under the country's Information Technology Act, 2000; the content remains available elsewhere".

Reuters stated that it could not verify if the May 16 email was related to Saturday's account suspension nor could it determine what specific content the demand referred to. Furthermore, it is not clear whether the removal was sought or the entity that had lodged the complaint.

The email also did not mention which entity had made the request or what content they wanted removed. It stated that in such cases a user could contact the secretary of India's Information and Broadcasting Ministry.

TRT World is a Turkish broadcaster, while Global Times is a Chinese media outlet.

News18 reported that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology stated that the blockade of the X account in India “seems like a technical issue or confusion from the X side",.

“The government did not ask X to block Reuters. Have asked X why they have done it. So many other handles of Reuters are still available in India, which shows that the government wants Reuters in India. It seems like a technical issue or confusion from the X side," they said.