The government blocked over 9,800 URLs, accounts and web pages in 2020, an increase of about 170% from 2019, under Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000.
In a written reply to Lok Sabha, Electronics and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, wherever the situation warrants, under the provision of section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, the government blocks unlawful and malicious online content, in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the State, friendly relations with foreign states or public order or for preventing incitement to the commission of any cognizable offence relating to above.
He added under this provision, 9,849 URLs/accounts/web pages were blocked in 2020, up from 3,603 URLs/accounts/web pages in 2019; 2,799 such URLS in 2018 and 1,385 URLs in 2017.
In a separate reply, the Minister added that in the year 2020, about 1,717 URLs were blocked on Facebook, and 2,731 URLs on Twitter. The figure for blocked URLs stood at 357, 526, 155, 2,049 for Facebook for the years 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019, respectively. Likewise, for Twitter, 194 URLs were blocked in 2016, 103 in 2017, 224 in 2018 and 1,041 in 2019.
“Blocking is done as per the process specified in the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information By Public) Rules, 2009.
“There are adequate safeguards and checks and balances prescribed in these Rules in the form of an Inter-Ministerial Committee having members as joint secretary or equivalent to examine blocking request and to make its recommendation,” he said.
The Minister added that the cyberspace is a complex environment of people, software, hardware and services on the internet providing a possibility of instant communication by anyone from anywhere around the world. The global outreach of social media platforms to allow interaction among internet users for sharing, hosting, storing, transmitting user content has increased tremendously and because of such features, specifically the option to remain anonymous, there are certain miscreants who use hateful and divisive language on social media platforms.
