New Delhi: In a fresh spate of takedowns, at least three Facebook pages – of news platforms Molitics and National Dastak, and satirist Rajeev Nigam – have alleged that their accounts were “restricted” in India following government orders. Several posts on X by Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair too faced similar action, the fact-checker posted on Sunday (March 29). As of Monday (March 30), a message on the three Facebook pages read: “Content not available in India. This is because we complied with a legal request to restrict this content.”It is not yet clear what led to the orders. However, these accounts have been known to often report on stories critical of the government, in addition to promoting satire and fact-checks. According to the notice received by Molitics, Meta restricted access to the content on these pages “pursuant to a notice from The Government of India / Law Enforcement under Section 79(3)(b) of the Information Technology Act, 2000”. Molitics has more than 4.5 lakh followers on Facebook and over 67.2k followers on X.While Section 79(1) of the IT Act shields digital platforms as well as social media intermediaries, like tech companies like X, Meta and YouTube, from legal liability for content posted by users, the sub section – Section 79(3)(b) – removes this shield and mandates the intermediaries to remove or disable access to content flagged by the government authorities as “unlawful”. Following the takedown notice, Neeraj Jha, editor at Molitics, wrote on X in Hindi: “When people at the top of power start feeling uncomfortable with the truth, the pillar of journalism begins to crumble. This has been happening for the past several years. And now, the speed of the attacks has increased. @moliticsindia, whose purpose is to discuss public-interest issues, to raise people’s voices, to spread scientific awareness, has been working in this direction for the past several years. It has also been receiving punishment for this. One more punishment has been received. Our Facebook page has been restricted in our country. No reason has been given. We urge all of you to stand with us in this situation!!!!”National Dastak, with 14.2 lakh followers on Facebook, describes itself as an alternative media that widely reports on issues of exploitation of Dalits, Adivasis, OBCs, women, farmers, and minorities, too received the same notice by Meta.National dastak के फेसबुक पेज को सरकार के कहने पर भारत में बैन किया गया है! संघी फैक्ट चेकर का सहारा लिया जा रहा है ! सबको बैन करवाया जा रहा है ! pic.twitter.com/z5RJ1Vg4w3— National Dastak (@NationalDastak) March 30, 2026In January last year, their YouTube channel had briefly faced a clampdown, which the channel claimed was on orders of the Income Tax department. “The Income Tax Department has frozen the account of National Dastak. No notice was issued. No opportunity to respond, nor any hearing,” they had alleged in a post. Their channel has been back since.Writer and satirist Rajeev Nigam, who has more than 6.6 lakh Facebook followers and over 2.2 lakh on X, said his Facebook page was also among those restricted in India on Sunday. Nigam, who is vocal about various political issues and prominent figures including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has previously spoken about how he receives backlash and legal notices because of his work. One of his parody videos on how Modi acts with foreign leaders went viral and continues to be shared despite government efforts to block parody videos of the same topic.While Nigam has not publicly shared the communication he has received, if any, in a post on X, he expressed his worry that his Facebook page was also among those taken down by the government.“My Facebook page won’t be visible to people in India.. This isn’t just happening to me, it’s happened to many others too, without any reason being given…. Dear government, why don’t you tell us what was lacking in our service to you… You’re not just stopping us from speaking out, you’re closing off all our avenues. Go ahead and do your “Mann Ki Baat,” don’t let anyone else speak. Well, we are just helpless citizens, what can we even do, but you shouldn’t ignore the cries of the innocent… Thank you, Modiji,” he said.Meanwhile, Mohammed Zubair, too, received an email regarding a blocking order over several posts on his X account. “Got an email from X saying that they received a blocking order from the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology citing Section 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, regarding my X account. So, Exposing the fake propaganda and false narrative set by the BJP Minister and Official handles is not allowed now?” he wrote in a post on the platform.Section 69 (A) of the IT Act pertains to content that violates national security, or threatens India’s foreign policy, which is then taken down on orders of the IT ministry.The posts in question were on a recent incident of vandalism during Ram Navami celebrations in the Murshidabad district of West Bengal, where ‘I Love Muhammad’ flags were reportedly removed and replaced with saffron flags.“When the Indian right wing shared cropped videos with false narratives, the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information technology didn’t have a problem. But soon after the right wing propaganda was busted by sharing the actual video of vandalism by the goons, The @MIB_India ministry woke up and ordered @X to block my tweets,” he said.This comes a few weeks after X withheld accounts of several parody handles and activists in India citing legal demand.The Hindu has reported that within a year of being empowered to directly issue takedown notices for online content, the Union home ministry has issued an average of about 290 such notices every day.The Wire has previously reported on how the User Manual for Sahyog Portal (IT intermediaries), that lays down the union government’s takedown mechanism for content online, makes it clear that orders are unilateral, and a direct correspondence between government agencies and intermediaries like social media platforms and telecom providers. It excludes journalists or content creators from its definition of “stakeholders”.According to the Union home ministry’s own data in the annual report for the year 2024-25, published on Wednesday (March 25, 2026), “1,11,185 suspicious online content has been blocked under Section 79(3)(b) of IT Act” till March 31, 2025.The home ministry monitors online content through its dedicated cyber wing, the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C). It has the power to issue blocking orders.However, the Union government is reportedly also planning to empower several ministries to issue content blocking orders to social media platforms under Section 69 (A) of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000. These are likely to include that of Home Affairs, External Affairs, Defence, and Information and Broadcasting. At present, this power rests with the IT ministry only.