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.
Content retrieved from: https://www.firstpost.com/india/modi-led-indian-govt-blocks-10500-urls-linked-to-pro-khalistani-referendum-13840661.html.
