Elon Musk-owned social media platform X and the Narendra Modi government locked horns on Tuesday over an alleged official order of July 3 to block over 2,000 accounts, including that of the Reuters news agency.

While the Union ministry of electronics and information technology contested X’s claim of having issued any such order, the microblogging site’s global government affairs team urged affected users to pursue legal remedies, saying its own abilities to do so were limited by Indian law.

Two days after unblocking the Reuters account, X expressed concern about the “ongoing press censorship” in India and claimed that the government had issued the blocking orders.

X added that the Indian government had ordered it to withhold 2,355 accounts across the country, including those of international news outlets like Reuters and Reuters World, under Section 69A of the IT Act.

Section 69A gives the government the power to issue directions to block public access to information through any computer resource.

“Non-compliance risked criminal liability. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology demanded immediate action — within one hour — without providing justification, and required the accounts to remain blocked until further notice,” the global government affairs team of X said in a post.

“After public outcry, the government requested X to unblock @Reuters and @ReutersWorld,” the post added.

Responding to queries on X’s post, a ministry spokesman said in a statement: “The government has not issued any fresh blocking order on 3rd July, 2025, and has no intention to block any prominent international news channels including Reuters and ReutersWorld. The moment Reuters and ReutersWorld were blocked on the X platform in India, immediately the government wrote to X to unblock them.”

Claiming that the government “continuously engaged and vigorously pursued with X from the late night of 5th July, 2025”, the ministry accused the Musk-owned company of “unnecessarily” exploiting technicalities involved around the process to delay the unblocking of the handles.

“However, after a lot of follow-up on an hourly basis, X has finally unblocked Reuters and other URLs after 9pm on 6th July, 2025. They took more than 21 hours to unblock Reuters,” the ministry added.

On the night of July 5, the X accounts of Reuters, Reuters World, the Chinese newspaper Global Times and the Turkish public broadcaster TRT World were blocked in India. All four accounts displayed the message: “Withheld in IN in response to a legal demand.” They were restored 24 hours later.

The ministry had on Sunday maintained that “there is no requirement from the Government of India to withhold the Reuters handle”, adding that it was working with X to resolve the problem.

Urging affected users to go to court against the government’s blocking order, X said it was exploring all legal options available. “Unlike users located in India, X is restricted by Indian law in its ability to bring legal challenges against these executive orders. We urge affected users to pursue legal remedies through the courts,” it said.

In May, the Indian government had ordered X to block over 8,000 accounts in the wake of the Pahalgam terror attack and Operation Sindoor. These included accounts of international news organisations, The Wire, Free Press Kashmir, The Kashmiriyat and Maktoob Media. The government accused these accounts of spreading “provocative” content, misinformation and anti-national propaganda. That time, too, X had expressed reservations about these directives.

X Corp, Musk’s Texas-based tech company that took over Twitter and renamed it X, is already contesting earlier blocking orders. The case is being heard in Karnataka High Court.