Tightening its grip against the pro-Khalistani referendum, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led Indian government has blocked around 10,500 URLs on social media which were linked to it in the last three years.
These Uniform Resource Locators, or URLs, linked to pro-Khalistani referendum were blocked by India under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act. According to a report by The Indian Express, the latest data was recently discussed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) with the top officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Apps spreading Khalistan referendum blocked
"Many mobile apps launched for spreading the Khalistan referendum were blocked by the department concerned," the IE report quoted an unnamed source as saying.
The Khalistan referendum is a voting exercise that is often organised in several western countries by the US-based Sikhs for Justice headed by Gurpatwant Singh Pannun to carve out a Sikh country from India.
The Section 69 of the IT Act enables the government to issue orders of blocking content to online intermediaries including Internet Service Providers (ISPs), telecom service providers, web hosting services, search engines, online marketplaces. It, however, requires the information or content being blocked to be deemed a threat to India’s national security, sovereignty, or public order.
Over 28,000 URLs of Facebook, X blocked in 3 years
As per the report, the Centre, in the last three years, has locked 28,079 URLs, most of them from Facebook (10,976) after they were found to be part of fraud schemes.
Also, 10,139 URLs from X (formerly known as Twitter) were blocked by the Indian government.
Apart from these, 2,211 YouTube accounts, 2,198 Instagram handles, 225 Telegram and 138 WhatsApp accounts were also blocked by the government during this period.
An officer in the security establishment, quoted in the report, said that in 2022, a total of 6,775 social media accounts were blocked, and the year 2023 saw 12,483 accounts being blocked. This year (2024) has so far seen 8,821 accounts blocked by the Centre.
A total of 3,417 accounts were blocked on X in 2022.
In 2023, there were 3,772 accounts on X which were blocked, and till September 30, 2024 as many as 2,950 of the social media platform were blocked.
As for YouTube, 809 accounts were blocked in 2022, as many as 862 in 2023 and 540 this year.
On Instagram, 355 accounts were blocked in 2022 and 814 in 2023. This year, 1,029 accounts have been blocked so far.
On WhatsApp, 66 accounts were blocked in 2022, as many as 16 in 2023 and 56 so far this year.
For Facebook, 1,743 accounts were blocked in 2022, while 6,074 faced the same fate in 2023 and 3,159, so far, this year.
Why were Facebook URLs blocked?
The IE report quoted an officer as saying that the probe found that most of the blocked Facebook URLs were used to take users to third party websites or app stores from where they were either directed to download android package kit, or WhatsApp groups to fraud them through trading, investment or work from home type frauds.
Who suggested blocking of URLs?
The officer further said that the URLs were blocked based on the recommendations of the Ministry of Home Affairs, "which had received inputs or evidence from central intelligence agencies that some of the sites and apps allegedly contained “material prejudicial to the sovereignty and integrity of India."
Of the total URLs blocked under Section 69 (A) of the IT Act between 2022-2024, nearly 2,100 were related to the PFI (Popular Front of India), the source quoted in the IE report said, who even highlighted that several radicalisation posts/accounts related to LTTE, J&K militants, Waris Punjab De (WPD) were also blocked by the government.
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