On 27 October 2026, my feed filled up with one screenshot over and over. A grey box, a single sentence, and a creator or news page saying their content had vanished. By evening, the claim had a headline: Modi is getting Instagram posts deleted.
It is a serious allegation, so I went through the reports, the court filings and the notices themselves before writing anything. Some of it holds up. Some of it is still a claim waiting for proof. Here is how I would separate the two.
What actually happened on 27 October
The trigger was a LiveLaw reel. The legal news site had posted a short explainer on the Election Commission's affidavit in the Supreme Court. Instagram restricted it for users in India, with the message "We received a legal request to restrict this content." LiveLaw pointed out that the reel was a plain explanation of the ECI's side, and that the same video was still live on YouTube. Later that day LiveLaw updated its post to say Instagram had restored the video.
Around the same time, satirist Varun Grover said a musical version of his poem on the government's Viksit Bharat 2047 promise had been taken down. Another satirist, Deshbhakt, wrote that anything even mildly critical of the government was being pulled. Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke went further and said thousands of posts and accounts were being removed every day.
Dhruv Rathee called the LiveLaw case proof of bulk orders, arguing that posts are being blocked in mass without anyone checking them one by one. Prabhat Khabar reported that he also claimed supporters of the PM were being caught in the same net. I could not find independent confirmation of that last point.
The numbers behind the noise
Strip away the hashtags and there is one hard data point. The Indian Express, working from government data, reported that the Union government sent close to 1.95 lakh blocking orders to Instagram, Facebook and YouTube between March and July 2026. That works out to roughly 1,275 a day, or one every 68 seconds.
- Instagram: nearly 1 lakh orders, more than half the total.
- Facebook: around 80,000 orders.
- YouTube: about 15,000 orders.
- For comparison: RTI records cited by the same paper showed only 2,312 orders to 19 platforms through the Sahyog portal between October 2024 and October 2025.
Two cautions before anyone quotes "1.95 lakh posts deleted". First, an order is not a post. One order can cover hundreds of items, so the real number of affected posts could be much higher, or the platform may not have acted on all of them. The report itself says orders do not map neatly to removals. Second, a senior official told the paper that a considerable share of these orders landed while the student protests over exam leaks were at their peak. Deepfakes were also on the list. So not everything in that pile is political criticism.
Two legal routes, and why the difference matters
When Instagram says "legal request", it can mean more than one thing. This is the part most viral posts skip, and it explains why lawyers and digital rights groups are so uneasy.
| Point | Section 69A, IT Act | Section 79(3)(b) via Sahyog portal |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A dedicated government power to block online information | A condition on a platform's legal immunity, used to send takedown notices |
| Grounds | Sovereignty, security of the state, public order and similar | Content the authorities consider unlawful |
| Who issues it | The Union government (MeitY) | Central and state agencies, including police, through the Home Ministry portal |
| Safeguards | Review committee and recorded reasons, but orders stay confidential | Critics say there is no equivalent committee |
| Reported scale in 2026 | Used for specific accounts, for example reports on the Cockroach Janta Party handle | Most of the March to July orders, per the Indian Express |
Digital rights groups argue the Sahyog route lets the government get content removed without the safeguards attached to Section 69A. The government's position, which the Karnataka High Court accepted in September 2025, is that the portal is a legitimate way to coordinate notices under the law.
What the courts and the government have said
The Karnataka High Court dismissed X Corp's challenge to Sahyog in September 2025. The judge described the portal as an instrument of public good and said unregulated speech cannot be allowed to run free. X appealed, and in March 2026 the High Court issued notice to the Centre on that appeal. So the legal question is still open.
Other cases are moving too:
- The Delhi High Court has asked the Centre, MeitY, Delhi Police and Meta to produce the Sahyog takedown orders behind journalist Ila Kazmi's blocked Instagram account, according to the Internet Freedom Foundation.
- On 27 October, the Delhi High Court issued notice to the Centre over the blocking of the Bring Back Ballot Instagram handle. The petitioners say they got no notice, hearing or reasons.
- The Internet Freedom Foundation has also said MeitY sent Meta a 10 October advisory about protest-related content. It wants that advisory withdrawn and published. This is the group's characterisation, and I have not seen the advisory myself.
As for a direct response, I could not find an official statement from MeitY or Meta addressing the 27 October claims specifically. In earlier episodes the government has pushed back. When The Wire's Instagram account was blocked for about two hours in February over a cartoon on the PM, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting denied issuing any blocking order, and Instagram restored the account the same evening.
Where the "Modi is deleting everything" story gets shaky
I would be doing you a disservice if I only listed what supports the claim. A few things complicate it.
- Platforms make mistakes. In late July, Meta apologised after a video of Modi himself was briefly removed, calling it an error. MeitY reportedly summoned Meta's senior policy heads over it. Automated systems clearly misfire in both directions.
- Restorations happen. LiveLaw's reel and the Cockroach Janta Party account were both restored after the restrictions. Neither Meta nor the government has explained why they were restricted or why they came back.
- "Withheld in India" is not "deleted". In most of these cases the content was hidden for Indian users, not wiped from the platform. That is still a restriction, but it is a different thing from deletion.
- Reasons are sometimes stated. For the Cockroach Janta Party account on X, the Indian Express quoted officials saying the order came after Intelligence Bureau inputs about national security. Critics dispute that framing, but it shows the government's stated rationale is not always "criticism".
What we still cannot verify
- Who inside the government flagged each individual post.
- Whether the LiveLaw reel and Grover's video were targeted by name, or caught by a broad or automated order.
- How many of the 1.95 lakh orders concern political speech versus deepfakes, protest content or other categories.
- Whether Rathee's claim about pro-Modi posts being removed is true.
Until the orders themselves are produced in court, or the government publishes a breakdown, every strong claim on either side, "total censorship" or "nothing to see here", is running ahead of the evidence.
What to do if your own post gets restricted
- Screenshot the notice, with the date and the exact wording.
- Check whether the content is still visible outside India, for example by asking a friend abroad.
- Appeal inside the app, but expect a quick rejection in most cases.
- If it is a news or public-interest account, write to the platform and, where possible, to MeitY's Section 69A cell. Digital rights groups like the Internet Freedom Foundation have also helped creators with legal notices.
- Back up your reels and keep copies on another platform.
My take: the real problem is the silence
Having read through all of this, the thing that stands out to me is not any single deleted reel. It is that almost nobody can see the paper trail. Blocking orders under Section 69A are confidential by design. Sahyog notices are sent machine to machine. The platform shows the user the same one-line message every time, and the government rarely explains.
That setup makes it easy for creators to assume the worst, and it makes it easy for supporters to dismiss every complaint as drama. Both reactions are understandable, and neither can be tested. The Delhi High Court cases asking for the actual orders to be produced may do more to settle this than a thousand viral posts. I will update this article if those orders, or an official response, come out.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Modi government really getting Instagram posts deleted?
Government agencies are sending Instagram blocking orders at a large scale, and Instagram is restricting posts in India citing a "legal request". What is not confirmed is that posts are being targeted because they criticise Modi, since the orders are confidential.
Why does Instagram say "We received a legal request to restrict this content"?
It is the standard notice Instagram shows when it hides content in a country after a government or court request. It does not name the law, the agency or the reason.
Which creators and pages have said their posts were removed?
LiveLaw said its reel on the ECI affidavit was restricted, Varun Grover said a musical version of his satirical poem was removed, and Dhruv Rathee, Deshbhakt and Cockroach Janta Party founder Abhijeet Dipke made wider claims about mass removals.
What is Section 69A of the IT Act?
It lets the Union government direct the blocking of online content on grounds such as sovereignty, security of the state and public order. Orders go through a review committee and are kept confidential.
What is the Sahyog portal?
It is a Home Ministry portal, run under the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, that lets central and state agencies send takedown notices to platforms under Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act. The Karnataka High Court upheld it in September 2025, and X Corp's appeal is pending.
How many blocking orders did the government send to Instagram?
The Indian Express reported nearly 1 lakh orders to Instagram between March and July 2026, out of about 1.95 lakh sent to Instagram, Facebook and YouTube combined. One order can cover many posts.
Have the removed posts been restored?
Some have. LiveLaw's reel and the Cockroach Janta Party's Instagram account were restored after being restricted, though no official reason was given for either decision.
Is "withheld in India" the same as deleted?
No. Withheld content is hidden for users in India but usually remains available elsewhere. The creator still has the post, but Indian audiences cannot see it.
Has the government or Meta responded to the latest claims?
As of 30 October 2026, I could not find an official statement from MeitY or Meta addressing the 27 October allegations specifically.