Why India’s digital regulations have raised concerns of centralised control over online speech, data

The X notice to Singh added that “Due to legal restrictions, we are unable to provide you with additional information… Indian law obligates X to withhold access to this content in India; however, the content remains available elsewhere.”

Singh’s account has been blocked in India since, he says.

“My entire reach and livelihood were built on X; my earnings, my audience, everything depended on that platform. Overnight, with no clear reason given in the notice, all of that has been put at risk,” he told The Federal.

With over 127,000 followers on X and hundreds of thousands more across YouTube and Instagram, Singh describes the action as a major disruption.

In the past few years, India’s digital regulatory framework has been steadily moving toward a more centralised system of control over online speech and data, with a growing concentration of executive power and fewer institutional checks, say experts. The shift has not come through a single law, but through a series of incremental legal and administrative changes.

The most recent of these are the proposed amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. The latest draft, released by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) last month, has sparked widespread concern among digital rights groups, journalists, and policy experts for potentially expanding the scope of state oversight, particularly over independent creators and smaller news platforms.

“This development should not be looked at in isolation. Over the past decade, especially after the IT Rules, 2021, there has been a move to systematically create an infrastructure for censorship of online content. This is just the next checkpoint in online content censorship,” says Nikhil Pahwa, digital rights activist and editor of MediaNama, a news and analysis portal covering technology policy in India.

According to Pahwa, the amendments reflect a deeper structural shift in how digital regulation is being pursued. “These rules are effectively the implementation of the broadcast bill that faced pushback earlier. Instead of bringing a law through Parliament, the government is amending the IT Rules to give the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting control over online news and commentary,” he says.

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The amendments, as flagged by civil society organisations, extend regulatory mechanisms beyond intermediaries to include users who post or share news-related content. This could potentially bring independent journalists, YouTube-based channels, and smaller digital outlets under direct regulatory scrutiny.

In a statement issued on March 30, the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF) said the draft amendments “represent a dangerous expansion of executive power over online speech”.

“We wish to state at the outset that these proposed amendments need to be immediately withdrawn and every member in our citizenry should demand their rollback and stand with the Constitution of India. These proposed amendments come at a time of fear and increased government-directed censorship, especially of online political speech that includes parody and satire of the government, including the Prime Minister,” it said.

The IFF statement added: “We are deeply distressed by the continuing expansion of unchecked executive power that is opposed to the Constitution of India. The present actions of MEITY smack of digital authoritarianism and we call on them to withdraw these proposed amendments.”

The Editors Guild of India too has warned that the draft rules “appear to arm MeitY with sweeping powers of content regulation, sharply increase compliance burden on digital intermediaries”, while also giving the executive “overarching powers to block or take down content”, including that generated by “non news publishers”.

“This will directly infringe the fundamental right to free speech guaranteed to all citizens under the Constitution and will have a chilling effect on freedom of expression and the airing of contrarian views, which are fundamental to an open and functional democracy,” the Guild said in a statement issued on April 4.

Alongside the expansion of regulatory scope is a tightening of enforcement mechanisms. One of the most consequential changes in recent months has been the reduction in compliance timelines for content takedowns from 36 hours to as little as two-three hours. According to reports, this could be brought further down to one hour.

“We've been seeing an increase in takedown of speech on the internet, especially in the last month or so. The reason that's happened is because the takedown timelines have gone down from 36 hours to three hours, which means that platforms cannot even check the complaint or the order that's coming from the government for legal validity, because they have only three hours to complain, they have to comply,” claims Pahwa.

The scale at which such orders are being issued allegedly further complicates the situation. Much of this has to do with the Sahyog portal – created by the Ministry of Home Affairs' Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) and operational since October 2024, which allows law enforcement agencies to send content takedown and blocking requests directly to intermediaries under section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act, 2000 - which governs the conditions under which intermediaries lose their “safe harbour” protections.

It is meant to streamline compliance, but critics say it centralises and accelerates the process of content removal with limited transparency or oversight. “We’re talking about a massive scale of orders: X itself has said it received over 160 orders per day over a six-month period. It’s not possible for any platform to apply its mind to that volume and assess each one legally in such a short time. So, platforms are choosing to censor first, because if they don't, then they would have liability,” alleges Pahwa.

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According to reports, X has challenged the Sahyog Portal in the Karnataka High Court, arguing that it was being used by authorities to block content “outside the statutory blocking process”. In court, the company said it had received 29,118 requests from the Indian government for the removal of posts between January and June 2025. It complied with 26,641 – a compliance rate of 91.49 per cent.

The draft amendments reinforce this trend. By linking compliance with a wide range of government-issued directions, “any clarification, advisory, order, direction, standard operating procedure, code of practice or guideline”, to the retention of safe harbour protections, they expand the scope of executive influence over platform behaviour.

“The linking of compliance with government directions to the loss of safe harbour protection under Section 79, combined with the absence of due process and transparency, is deeply concerning,” the Editors Guild has said, warning that intermediaries may be compelled to act without sufficient legal scrutiny.

Beyond content regulation, experts say the broader pattern of digital governance in India points to a consolidation of executive power across multiple domains.

“We should be deeply concerned at the direction of the current rulemaking and use of executive power by the Union government in India, particularly by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. Rather than seeking to consult with the people of India including vulnerable individuals and communities on an approach that would advance their interests and doing so in a manner that would safeguard fundamental rights, the approach the government is taking instead is a constant focus on removing oversight deleting or further reducing checks and balances and constantly pushing for a further capitulation to executive demands amongst actors in the internet ecosystem,” Raman Jit Singh Chima, Asia Pacific Policy Director and Senior International Counsel at Access Now, an international digital rights organisation, told The Federal.

He pointed to a consistent pattern of pressure being applied on technology platforms, from large companies to smaller actors, to comply with government demands for information control. He also highlighted the absence of safeguards and accountability mechanisms.

“This approach is deeply alarming because it falls short of Indian constitutional standards itself. The Supreme Court of India has consistently indicated that the government of India is supposed to allow ways for actors to be notified of excessive government surveillance, to push back on requests, to be notified when the government takes any measure that might impact their rights,” says Chima.

At the heart of these concerns is the question of due process. Blocking orders under Section 69A of the IT Act are typically confidential, with limited disclosure and minimal opportunity for affected parties to challenge them. The new amendments, critics argue, risk further reducing transparency by expanding executive discretion without corresponding oversight.

Another move being considered by the Centre, according to multiple reports, is to give multiple ministries the power to issue content blocking orders under Section 69A; the power is so far limited only to the IT Ministry, and is typically used to remove content and block accounts on grounds such as national security and public order. If decided, it could significantly scale up the volume of takedown requests, further exacerbating the issue.

India’s record on internet shutdowns adds another layer to this framework of control. Over the past decade, the country has consistently ranked among the highest globally in terms of the number of shutdowns imposed, often justified on grounds of public order or security. According to the latest report by Access Now, a global organisation fighting for human rights in the digital era, India ranked the highest among democracies when it came to internet shutdowns in 2025, with 65 in a year.

While authorities maintain that such measures are necessary in exceptional circumstances, critics argue that they have become a routine tool of governance, frequently imposed with limited transparency and oversight.

“Ultimately, India is an extremely alarming outlier amongst its fellow democracies. If you see the other major G7 countries, India is one of the countries where the federal government has issued perhaps the most number of direct censorship demands of platforms. It is consistently amending its regulatory framework to allow for take-down with even shorter notice, with no checks and balances,” alleges Chima.

He adds: “And remember here, India is one of the few major countries that have been invited to G7 meetings, whose federal government allows censorship to happen without independent oversight. No judges are involved. No independent actors are involved in the processes of blocking orders issued under the Information Technology Act, let alone the takedown notice framework that they've created.”

Parallel to developments in content regulation is the implementation of the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, which governs the collection and use of personal data. While the law introduces a framework for consent-based data processing, it has drawn criticism for the wide exemptions granted to the state.

“If you look at the approach to both the Data Protection Act and the IT Act, there is a deeply concerning pattern where consulting with public interest organisations, state governments and diverse stakeholders is secondary to the government's objective of advancing a position that gives maximal powers to the federal government that puts the least amount of regulation oversight on government agencies and departments and one that fails to advance the idea that the people of India have a right to be able to express themselves online and a right to be able to ensure control and strict access to their data and to their privacy,” claims Chima.

He adds that the emerging framework prioritises state control over individual rights. “What we are seeing is a framework that maximises powers for the central government while minimising oversight over state agencies. At the same time, it does little to advance the idea that people in India have a right to free expression online and meaningful control over their data and privacy,” Chima alleges.

As these developments unfold, experts warn that the pace of regulatory change itself is becoming a concern.

“The government is coming up with rules at a great frequency. In February 2021, the first amendment to the IT rules came out. Since then, we have had about six to seven amendments having taken place, which means more than one amendment per year… By the time an amendment comes, and by the time a provision gets struck down in court, two more come up. So, you're constantly running to figure out how to address something in court. The state is making rules faster than people can get them taken down,” claims Pahwa.

He adds: “Many of these rules go beyond the ambit of the original act and are definitely illegal. But the capacity to challenge is much smaller than the capacity of the state to create these laws. So, we are at this point in a dire situation when it comes to censorship in India, and something needs to be done to prevent this from happening.”

The Federal has reached MeitY secretary S Krishnan for comments on concerns raised by experts; the article will be updated if a response is received.

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Meanwhile, political responses have also begun to emerge. Karan Chourasia, national joint secretary of the Indian Youth Congress, says the organisation has launched a “Digital Azaadi” campaign to support those facing online censorship.

“We’ve launched the Digital Azaadi campaign to support people facing arbitrary takedowns and online censorship. Through this, individuals can register complaints online, and we have readied a set of lawyers who will provide legal assistance to those who want to challenge such actions,” Chourasia told The Federal.

For those directly affected, the consequences of these regulatory shifts are immediate and tangible.

Singh, whose channel describes itself as “dedicated to critically examining government policies and highlighting issues affecting ordinary people”, believes the broader intent is to curb dissenting voices. “This is being brought in to curb those who amplify the voices of Dalits, minorities, and other marginalised communities. They don’t want people to question or criticise policies; they want us to say only what suits them,” he alleges.

At the same time, he insists that the pressure would not change his work. “Despite this, I’m not going to change the way I make my videos. If anything, it shows how important it is to keep speaking about issues that affect people on the ground,” Singh adds.