The government has blocked the Instagram account of political cartoonist Satish Acharya under the 2021 Information Technology Rules, following a legal request from Meta-owned platform. This action is part of a series of content removal orders issued by the government.
The Instagram account of political cartoonist Satish Acharya has been blocked in India after receiving a legal request from Meta, the company that owns the platform. According to Instagram, the block was implemented due to content that goes against local law as per their review and a subsequent legal and human rights assessment. This action is taken under the 2021 Information Technology Rules which require social media platforms to remove ‘unlawful content’ within three hours of receiving directions from the government or a court.
This incident marks one of many instances where the government has ordered content removal on social media platforms. According to The Indian Express, between March and July 2022, nearly two lakh orders were issued to Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube to take down content.
Each blocking order may cover hundreds of individual posts, pieces of content or accounts. In comparison, between October 2024 and October 2025, 2,312 blocking orders were sent to 19 online platforms through the Sahyog portal.
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has integrated its Application Programming Interface with the Sahyog portal to comply with the government orders. This integration allows content flagged through government directions on the portal to be automatically removed from Meta’s platforms without a separate human review.
Responding to the development on Monday, Acharya said he had never seen a government that is ‘so scared of cartoons ’. He also shared a news report from 2018, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi had praised the healing power of cartoons.
Acharya described the National Democratic Alliance government at the Centre as ‘block sarkar’.
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