New Delhi: The Wire has received two takedown notices from Meta pertaining to the removal of a text story and a video explainer on July 2 and July 13, respectively. The posts were removed without any prior intimation and no specific reasons were provided as well.On July 13, a video explainer by Minal Saeed based on Devirupa Mitra’s detailed report on the indictment of jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi by United States was taken down when the reporter shared it as an Instagram story on her personal social media account.A video story was taken down from Facebook on July 13.“We restricted access to this content through an automated system implement pursuant to legal requirements under India’s Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021,” read the notification, adding that the “story is unavailable in India”.The video explainer is available on The Wire’s Youtube channel, Facebook, Instagram and X platforms.It details what led to the US indictment of Bishnoi, marking the first time that the India-based gang has been criminally charged in connection with the assassination of Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada, that triggered an unprecedented diplomatic rupture between India and Canada.On July 2, Junaid Dar’s report titled “Bollywood is Mocking Our Suffering, Say Kashmir’s Pellet Survivors On ‘Chauhaan‘ Trailer Dialogue” was also taken down from Facebook and Instagram. A Hindi translated version of Dar’s report, however, is still available on Instagram.The report highlighted how the trailer of Ajay Devgn’s upcoming Bollywood action film, Chauhaan, has rekindled painful memories for thousands of Kashmiri pellet survivors whose lives were permanently altered by pellet injuries during the years of unrest in the valley.A story titled “Bollywood is Mocking Our Suffering, Say Kashmir’s Pellet Survivors On ‘Chauhaan’ Trailer Dialogue” was taken down from The Wire’s Facebook page on July 2.“The criticism surrounding the trailer focuses on how one of the most painful chapters of Kashmir’s recent history is remembered and represented by Bollywood to its audiences across India and the world,” Dar wrote in his report.It is available on The Wire’s website and X platform as well.The Hindi version of a story titled “Bollywood is Mocking Our Suffering, Say Kashmir’s Pellet Survivors On ‘Chauhaan’ Trailer Dialogue” by Junaid Dar is available on The Wire’s Instagram page as of 3.30 pm IST on July 14, 2026.This is not the first instance that Meta has blocked The Wire’s content.The Wire’s Instagram account was blocked in India for nearly two hours on February 9. It was later learnt that the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) had directed Meta to block a 52-second satirical cartoon on Instagram, which was published on February 7, and that the social media giant blocked the entire Instagram handle of The Wire ‘in error’. The same cartoon was also blocked on X.Later, The Wire was invited via an emailed notice to attend a meeting on February 11 where it was given an opportunity to submit its views to an official inter-departmental committee (IDC) on the government’s decision to ban the animated cartoon published on its social media platforms.While the notice did not specify the grounds for the ban, The Wire’s founding editor, Siddharth Varadarajan, who attended the meeting, was informed orally before he was invited to speak that the reasons for blocking the cartoon were that it spread rumours/unverified information that would affect the defence, security, reputation of the country and India’s relations with foreign countries. It was unclear which part of the short video had spread rumours.Under India’s IT law, the MIB is required to inform a publisher in advance that it intends to block content to a particular article or page.