We missed this earlier: The Ministry of Railways directed X (formerly Twitter) to take down two links that were pushing back against the changes the government had made to railway recruitment requirements in October, as per documents reviewed by MediaNama. In a takedown notice issued under Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, 2000, the Ministry mentioned that the two posts are “misleading and sensitive/provoking media/content regarding railway recruitment rules which may lead to disruption of public order.” It added that the posts violated Section 353 of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS, 2023), which penalises the act of conducing public mischief.
This information comes as part of the appeal that X submitted at the Karnataka High Court against the decision of the single-judge bench that had dismissed its petition challenging the constitutionality of the Sahyog portal. The case also challenged the government’s use of Section 79(3)(b) and Rule 3(1)(d) of the IT Act, 2000, and the IT Rules, 2021, respectively, for issuing content takedown notices. Previously, as part of that case, X disclosed that the government had sent it takedown notices for about 1132 URLs/pieces of content between March 2024 and 2025. As per the appeal, since March, the government has sent many more takedown notices for at least 201 more pieces of content between April and October 2025.
The appeal petition mentions that during the first half of 2025 (January-June 2025), the government received 29,118 removal requests, including those under Section 69A. X took actions on 26, 641 of these requests.
Details of the key content takedown requests sent to X:
Post questioning a Bihar DM’s interaction with an alleged criminal:
On April 9, the Bihar Police issued a notice to X demanding the takedown of three posts questioning the district magistrate (DM) of Bettaiah in Bihar with an alleged criminal.
The police issued the takedown notice because the posts violated Section 94 of the Bhartiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS, 2023), which empowers the courts and police to summon individuals or direct entities to produce necessary documents (including digital evidence) for investigations. The police classified the content as hateful, consisting of violent threats and incitement to offence.
Posts around the Anna University sexual assault case:
Chennai Police sent X takedown requests for seven posts associated with seven different accounts on the platform on April 23, 2025. These posts largely focused on the protests and pushback surrounding the Anna University Sexual assault case against the state government. The police issued takedown notices citing violations of Section 196 of BNS, which prohibits statements promoting enmity between groups, and Section 353. Besides seeking content takedowns, the Chennai Police also directed the platform to preserve all the contents of the tweets, including associated metadata, and provide the IP logs of the users associated with the accounts, mobile numbers and email addresses linked to the accounts, and IMEI numbers of the mobile devices that the account holders used to post their tweets.
The same day, the police also sent 11 takedown notices to X, critiquing the state government. “The content in question is false, provocative, and has the potential to incite political tensions, thereby threatening the harmony, sovereignty, public peace, and order within the state,” it mentioned in the takedown notice.
Posts about a woman driving onto the railway track:
The Ministry of Railways directed X to take down 183 posts pertaining to a woman who drove onto the railway track in Telangana on June 26. The posts also include news reports about the incident.
The government mentioned that the content of these posts was sensitive in nature because it depicted a tendency to self-harm and also posed a threat to the safety of rail users. Further, the content violated section 161 (unauthorised driving at railway tracks is a punishable offence) and sections 150 and 152 (actions leading to accidents or endangerment of human life) under the Indian Railways Act, 1989. “This is not only against the ethical norms but also against the content policy of x.com itself under suicide or self-harm, as sharing this video may also disrupt train operations or encourage self-harm,” it added.
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X had discussed this takedown notice during the hearing of its case. “Some lady drove a car on a railway track; somebody took a picture and put it on social media. Now that is considered to be unlawful in this country for the purpose of exercising power under Section 79, read with 69A?” X’s lawyer, KG Raghavan, commented on the takedown notice, questioning whether the video in question actually constituted unlawful content.
Why it matters:
These takedown notices shed light on the kind of comments the government is taking action against via the Sahyog Portal. Transparency about content takedowns is important to ensure that authorities do not misuse the service to censor legitimate content. It’s important to mention here that these details only emerged through X’s court filings, not proactive government disclosure. Without systematic transparency about takedown requests, there’s no public oversight to prevent abuse of these powers to silence legitimate dissent or criticism.
Besides the over 1300 posts/URLs the government asked X to take down this year, it also directed the platform to block 8000 accounts after Indian tourists visiting the Pahalgam region of Jammu and Kashmir were attacked by terrorists in April this year. In the appeal, it updates this information, stating that the government issued 62 emergency blocking orders between April and May 2025, directing the platform to take down 12,000 URLs, including 10,500 accounts, from public access on an emergency basis.
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