New Delhi: The Union government could soon empower several ministries including that of Home Affairs, External Affairs, Defence, and Information and Broadcasting to issue content blocking orders to social media platforms under Section 69 (A) of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000, reported Indian Express.At present, this power of issuing content blocking order only resides with the IT Ministry. The decision will have its impact on tech platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and YouTube which could start receiving blocking orders from a wide range of government agencies.The Indian Express report, authored by Soumyarendra Barik, cited two senior officials who said that the government is holding inter-ministerial discussions with different stakeholders to bring an amendment to make the change possible. According to the officials, this latest move has been necessitated owing to the proliferation of AI-generated misleading content on the internet.Apart from these five ministries, the amendment could also allow regulators like the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to send takedown orders directly to tech companies.At present, there are two parallel content blocking mechanisms in India, with the first being under Section 69 (A) of the IT Act, which pertains to content that violates national security, or threatens India’s foreign policy, which is then taken down. The IT Ministry is the final signing-off agency responsible for issuing the blocking order.The second mechanism works under Section 79 (3)(b) of the IT Act, as per which different ministries have been directly empowered to issue blocking orders to online platforms, most commonly through the Home Ministry-led Sahyog portal.“We want to bring parity across both regimes. Like how using the Sahyog portal various agencies at the Central and state level can send blocking orders to social media companies, there is a growing feeling that the Section 69 (A) blocking process should also be similarly decentralised,” a senior government official told the newspaper.Queries sent by Indian Express to the IT Ministry by did not elicit a response.In recent times, the Union government has been invoking Section 69A of the Information Technology Act to block multiple social media posts that appear to have one thing in common: they mock, lampoon or are otherwise sharply critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his policies, mannerisms – and evasions.