Read the ERC blog post here.

“The Environmental Reporting Collective (ERC) expressed serious concern over the lack of transparency surrounding Meta’s decision to block access in India to an Instagram reel linked to its cross-border investigation into the environmental and social impacts of data center expansion,” an ERC blog post said, condemning Meta for taking down a two-minute journalistic documentary featuring farmers discussing Google’s AI data center, whose construction had already begun.

“The lack of clarity surrounding this restriction raises broader concerns about the mechanisms through which journalistic content can be limited from public view, especially when such reporting addresses issues of significant public interest,” said the collective, a global network of journalists and newsrooms from at least nine countries dedicated to environmental reporting.

What is the reel about? You can watch the reel Meta deleted here: [Video]. 

• The two-minute short documentary features villagers and farmers from Tarluvada village in Andhra Pradesh (AP), who allege that land originally given to landless peasants during the Indira Gandhi regime is now being forcibly acquired by the authorities through threats and coercion to build a Google data center near Visakhapatnam.
• “We were not told anything about a data center,” said a villager in the video. She claimed that authorities were threatening them over their land.

ERC’s statements: 

• ERC has not received any detailed explanation regarding the legal basis, policy rationale, or specific complaint that led to the restriction of the content in India. It further stated that on May 22, at approximately 2 pm, ERC received a notification that the reel, which had garnered 2.6 million views, was no longer available in India.
• “ERC stands firmly behind the reporting and editorial processes underpinning this investigation and accompanying video. The work was produced through a rigorous journalistic process involving extensive field reporting, documentation, interviews with affected communities and relevant stakeholders, editorial review, fact-checking, and cross-border collaboration among experienced journalists and partner newsrooms,” it said in a blog post condemning what it described as arbitrary censorship. 

Read Indian professional content creators’ experience on arbitrary takedowns and blocking orders from MediaNama’s discussion on IT Rules and online free speech: [Link]

What is Google’s data center deal in AP: Google aims to build a 1-GW hyperscale Google AI Data Centre on 601.4 acres of land in three locations. Some key details: 

• What Google plans to do with this data center in AP: The AI infrastructure is intended to support businesses, developers, and researchers, and to establish a subsea gateway that complements existing landings in Mumbai and Chennai.
• Investment: $15 billion USD over 5 years (2026-2030), as per its press release. 
• Partners: AdaniConneX Data Center and Airtel. 
• Employment claims: Over the next five years, the deal is supposed to create 5,000–6,000 direct jobs and 20,000–30,000 total jobs in AP.

Explore the various data centers in India and their current status on ERC’s Dirty Data website: [Link]

The recent censorship on Meta and X: 

• Cockroach Janta Party (CJP):  “In response to a legal demand,” X has withheld the account of the satirical political collective Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) in India on May 21. Read more about it here. 
• Norwegian journalist who tried to question PM Narendra Modi: Meta briefly suspended Norwegian journalist Helle Lyng’s Instagram account without stating any reasons. This happened after the video of her trying to question PM Modi during a press briefing on his visit to Norway. Read more about the incident here. 

Madras HC on online free speech and arbitrary takedowns: Recently, amid ongoing censorship at scale, the Madras High Court made important statements upholding free speech. Some of them are: 

• Three-hour take-down compliance period is disproportionate and can bypass legal procedures: “Such a short timeline, in the absence of disclosed emergency or imminent threat, prima facie appears disproportionate. Where the State invokes urgency, the urgency must be apparent either from the record or from the reasons. Otherwise, urgency becomes a cloak for bypassing procedural fairness.”
• On misusing broad and vague expressions as reasons to block free speech: “Political sensitivity cannot be the measure of constitutional permissibility. A democracy cannot treat criticism as disorder, satire as sedition, dissent as danger or opinion as offence.”
  The court noted the following terms as broad expressions:
  • “provocative political remarks”, 
  • “disturbing public tranquillity”,
  • “maintenance of law and order” and
  • “politically sensitive remarks”.
• On the importance of documenting the reasons for blocking orders: “The power to block or remove online content is a serious power. It may affect not only the author of the content but also the public’s right to receive information. In the digital age, blocking a URL may silence a speaker, erase a viewpoint and impoverish public debate. Therefore, such power must be exercised with precision, restraint and reasons.” – Madras HC. 

Read more about the Madras HC’s statements here: [MediaNama’s coverage | Court Order]

Also read: 

• ‘Lack of application of mind & recorded reasons’: Madras HC stays Tamil Nadu police blocking order
• Influencer ‘The Skin Doctor’ arrested over ‘objectionable’ posts, gets bail hours later 
• Telangana Police invokes UAPA to demand TeluguScribe’s user data from X