iWorld
India cuts online content takedown window from 36 hours to three
Nearly 2.98 lakh URLs flagged between March and July as government speeds up removals
MUMBAI: When the internet moves at lightning speed, the government wants takedowns to keep pace. India has cut the time available to intermediaries to act on requests to remove unlawful online content from 36 hours to three hours, following an amendment to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, in February 2026.
The tighter deadline is aimed at speeding up action against unlawful material online. The PIB Fact Check said on X that India has around 600 million users, collectively posting up to 78,703 items every 68 seconds, making it inevitable that some content may cross legal boundaries.
The government has argued that the State and its instrumentalities cannot abdicate their responsibilities and allow lawlessness to proliferate in cyberspace, putting greater emphasis on timely intervention.
The scale of takedown requests also underlines the volume of content being flagged. Between March and July 2026, around 2.98 lakh URLs were sent for removal, with states accounting for approximately 2.44 lakh URLs, or 82 per cent of the total.
The Indian Cybercrime Coordination Centre (I4C) accounted for around 51,000 URLs during the period. These were linked to cyber fraud, infrastructure-related scams and stock-investment scams.
The government said that over the past two years, most unlawful content intimated by I4C has involved transnational financial frauds, Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), and offences involving women and children.
The faster takedown mechanism also builds on the government’s existing digital coordination with platforms. An API integration with Meta was established in 2025 at the social media company’s request, with the system intended to facilitate the transmission of takedown intimations.
Under the IT Intermediaries Rules, platforms are required to act on intimations issued by competent authorities. However, such requests cannot come from just any government official. Only authorised officers notified by the relevant ministry or state government can issue intimations seeking the removal of unlawful content.
Those intimations are also subject to periodic review by the respective governments, adding an oversight layer to a system that is now operating on a considerably shorter clock.
With the response window shrinking from 36 hours to three, the government’s message to intermediaries is clear: in a digital environment where thousands of pieces of content can appear within minutes, enforcement cannot afford to move at yesterday’s speed.
