India has emerged as one of the few countries where social media content can be restricted automatically on a large scale through state-backed mechanisms, raising fresh concerns over online censorship and the shrinking space for digital expression.

Reports indicate that technology companies are increasingly complying with government-directed takedowns facilitated through newly institutionalised enforcement systems.

India is now among the “limited countries” where Facebook and Instagram can “automatically restrict content, at scale and based on local law requirements,” The Hindu reported citing company source.

Meta, the parent firm of both social media platforms, has reportedly complied with censorship orders on a large scale in recent weeks, after being hit by a barrage of takedown notices from State authorities and the Union government.

At the centre of this development is the Sahyog portal, a Union home ministry initiative used by law enforcement agencies to automate and expedite the removal of online content.

The portal provides a web link for authorised police officials to enable bulk takedown orders, unilateral action, and direct communication with IT intermediaries, often targeting political criticism and satirical content, while offering no independent review process.
It operates under Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000, and Rule 3(1)(d) of the Intermediary Guidelines, 2021, under which social media platforms could lose “safe harbour” for content posted by users, and end up defending themselves in court alongside the people whose content has been targeted by authorities.

The use of the portal to issue takedown orders by circumventing Section 69(A) of the IT Act – that specifically deals with blocking orders – has faced criticism, as has the opaque nature of an operation that allows government censorship.

While X Corp, the company that runs micro-blogging platform X, has challenged the Sahyog portal in the Karnataka high court, and it reportedly does not comply with police takedown notices if it thinks the content targeted is lawful.

On the other hand, Meta’s response is to instantaneously restrict access in response to content that has been sent through this mechanism, giving police authorities wide powers of immediate and lasting censorship that they can exercise by merely filling out an online form, the report stated.

More worryingly, Meta does not put back content it may eventually agree was taken down unlawfully. It asks the government for unblocking orders.

“Meta is unthinkingly removing content it is legally not even required to remove,” Pranesh Prakash, co-founder of the Centre for Internet and Society, who is now a tech law and policy consultant, was quoted as saying to The Hindu.

He added that this was not new and that a study by CIS conducted in 2012 also showed that under the 2011 IT Rules, intermediaries tended to remove any content that anyone complained about without any application of mind.

The daily reported that police authorities across the country have started using the Sahyog facility.

On April 1, Goa Police’s cybercrime department filed a one-page complaint against an Instagram account called ‘deepakdialoguess’ – which has over 1.5 lakh followers – for “posting objectionable/defaming content about prominent persons such as the Chief Minister of Goa”, without citing any individual posts. The account has now been blocked in India.

The developments have intensified debate around transparency, due process, and the growing influence of executive authorities over online platforms, with critics warning that automated takedown systems risk normalising large-scale censorship without adequate legal scrutiny or independent oversight.