Govt directed blocking of 9,849 URLs in 2020: MoS IT informs Parliament

The ministry follows due process in all such directions, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said

The government directed blocking of 9,849 accounts/URLs during 2020, up from 3,635 accounts/URLs in the previous year, under a specific provision of the Information Technology Act, 2000, Parliament was informed on Wednesday.

Under the provision of section 69A of the Act, the government directed blocking of 471, 500, 633 and 1,385 accounts/URLs in 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017, respectively, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

This number stood at 2,799 in 2018; 3,635 in 2019 and 9,849 in 2020, he added.

Uniform resource locator (URL) refers to the address of a unique resource on the internet.

"All the accounts/URLs that are blocked by the government are based on the requests, received from the concerned designated Nodal Officers of Ministries/States, on specified grounds and following the due process, specified in the IT (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009, notified under section 69A of the IT Act," he said.

The ministry follows due process in all such directions, Chandrasekhar added.

In response to another query, Chandrasekhar said the government is well aware of the risk and danger posed by growing phenomena of misuse of various media platform and the user harms caused as a consequence.

"...keeping with the mission of having an open, safe and trusted and accountable internet, Government has published, the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 under the IT Act. These rules have appropriate provisions to deal with such user harms/ menace," he said.

He further stated that law enforcement agencies at the Centre and states take appropriate legal action as per provisions of law, and when appropriate, request intermediaries including social media platforms like Google and Youtube to remove content violative of any law.