India has blocked the X account of China’s Xinhua News Agency, following the blocking of the CCP mouthpiece Global Times.

Earlier, the Indian Embassy in China strongly cautioned Global Times to verify facts before posting on social media.

“Dear Global Times News, we would recommend you verify your facts and cross-examine your sources before pushing out this kind of disinformation,” the Embassy said in a post on X.

The Indian Embassy added that several pro-Pakistan handles were circulating groundless claims in the context of Operation Sindoor, attempting to mislead the public.

“When media outlets share such information without verifying sources, it reflects a serious lapse in responsibility and journalistic ethics,” the embassy added.

Earlier, India ordered X to block more than 8,000 accounts. The platform said that it was reluctantly complying with what it described as government-imposed “censorship.”

The move appears to be part of India’s sweeping crackdown targeting social media accounts of Pakistani politicians, celebrities, and media organizations amid heightened tensions and deadly confrontations between the nuclear-armed neighbors.

The order, which X said includes demands to block international news organizations and other prominent users, comes a day after Meta banned a prominent Muslim news page on Instagram in India at New Delhi’s request.

“X has received executive orders from the Indian government requiring X to block over 8,000 accounts in India, subject to potential penalties including significant fines and imprisonment of the company’s local employees,” the site’s global government affairs team said in a statement.

It added that the government had not specified which posts from the accounts violated Indian laws in most cases and provided no evidence or justification for the blocks in many others.

The Elon Musk-owned platform said it disagreed with the demands but had begun the process of withholding the specified accounts in India.

“Blocking entire accounts is not only unnecessary, it amounts to censorship of existing and future content, and is contrary to the fundamental right of free speech,” the statement said.

“This is not an easy decision; however, keeping the platform accessible in India is vital to Indians’ ability to access information.”

X said it could not make the Indian executive orders public due to legal restrictions, but it encouraged the impacted users to seek “appropriate relief from the courts.”

Pakistan Accounts hacked

Pakistan’s National Cyber Emergency Response Team (NCERT), meanwhile, warned of the risk of increased cyberattacks on emails, social media, QR codes, and messaging apps.

Pakistan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Karachi Port Trust said this week that their X accounts had been hacked and later restored.

In the case of the Karachi Port Trust, the account was hacked to say that the Indian military had attacked the port, one of South Asia’s busiest.

The X account was later restored, and the port authority said that no attack had taken place.

India has also banned more than a dozen Pakistani YouTube channels for spreading “provocative” content, including Pakistani news outlets.

Pakistani Bollywood movie regulars Fawad Khan and Atif Aslam, as well as a wide range of cricketers, including Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan, were also off limits in India.

Rising hostilities between the South Asian neighbors have unleashed an avalanche of online misinformation, with social media users circulating everything from deepfake videos to outdated images from unrelated conflicts, falsely linking them to the ongoing fighting.