“Stance against BJP, RSS”: Insta handles of Malayalam daily Deshabhimani, portal 'No Cap' disabled
News portal The Wire was blocked for two hours on Monday
Kochi: Meta has reportedly disabled Instagram handles of Malayalam newspaper Deshabhimani, and online news portal ‘No Cap’.
According to a report by The News Minute, the platform also had blocked national news portal The Wire was blocked in India for nearly two hours on Monday, February 9.
“The Instagram account was disabled on February 1, coinciding with the day the Union Government presented its budget. In the ten days since, the organisation has repeatedly reached out to Meta seeking restoration of the account, but has received no response or resolution,” reported TNM quoting the Coordinating Editor, Sajan Evugen for the digital edition of Deshabhimani as saying.
Sajan also shared that they posted several news card on the budget day, however later that day Meta disabled their account without any proper explanation.
“We have submitted an appeal but have not received a response, we also haven’t received any notification on community standards violation,” he added.
Meanwhile, Deshabhimani, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in a report stated that the action came in the backdrop of the newspaper’s reporting and firm stance against
“Deshabhimani regularly shared posts highlighting what it described as the Union government’s neglect of Kerala and its anti-people policies,” the newspaper said, suggesting these could be possible reasons behind the ban.
In a Facebook post, No Cap stated that action against its Instagram handle was taken without any explanation or specified reason.
Quoting Ali Hyder, Executive Editor of No Cap, the TNM reported that they initially received a notice from Meta suspending the account for an alleged violation of community standards, without specifying any particular post or content.
“We submitted an appeal explaining our position, but the response we received was a permanent suspension, citing only ‘community violence’ without any clear explanation,” Hyder stated.
According to Hyder, in the days leading up to the suspension, the account had shared news posts critical of the RSS and reports mentioning Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s name in connection with the Epstein files.
“We are not certain about the exact reason, but some of the content we posted recently was related to the Epstein files,” he said.
Deshabhimani in its report stated that the Instagram account had shared posts opposing Union government policies impacting ordinary citizens, criticising what it described as the neglect of Kerala, and condemning the BJP government’s alleged submission to the United States and propaganda against communal harmony.
“Meta’s action comes at a time when this content had reached a wide audience,” the Deshabhimani report read.
Following the ban, on Monday, February 9, Deshabhimani appealed for the account’s reinstatement, but has not received any favourable response from Meta so far. “We will continue our efforts to communicate with Meta, but for now, we have launched a new page,” Sajan said.
Alongside news portal accounts, several Instagram pages that had criticised the Union government were also disabled over the past week.
In a social media post, The Wire said it had informally learned that the ministry had requested Meta to block a 52-second satirical animation on Instagram. Although the account was later restored, the cartoon remained inaccessible.
Third largest newspaper in kerala blocked because they were critical of BJP's Union Government.
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Rickelton's ton in vain as SRH beat MI by 6 wickets
Mumbai (PTI): Ryan Rickelton's whirlwind unbeaten ton was overshadowed by Heinrich Klaasen's unbeaten 65 as Sunrisers Hyderabad defeated Mumbai Indians by six wickets in an IPL match here on Wednesday.
Chasing an imposing 244-run target, Travis Head (76 off 30) and Abhishek Sharma (45 off 24) shared 129 runs for the opening wicket to set the platform for SRH.
Klaasen (65 not out off 30 balls) then displayed his all-round hitting abilities to guide SRH home with the help of Nitish Kumar Reddy (21) and Salil Arora (30 not out off 10) in 18.4 overs.
Earlier, Rickelton's knock powered MI to 243 for five.
MI rode on a 93-run stand between Rickelton (123 not out off 55 balls) and Will Jacks (46 off 22) in 7.1 overs for the opening stand to power the side.
MI skipper Hardik Pandya scored a valuable 31 off 15 balls before being dismissed.
Praful Hinge (2/54), Eshan Malinga (1/29), Sakib Hasan (1/39) and Nitish Kumar Reddy (1/31) were the wicket-takers for SRH.
Brief Scores:
Mumbai Indian: 243 for 5 in 20 overs (Ryan Rickelton 123 not out; Praful Hinge 2/54).
Sunrisers Hyderabad: 249 for 4 in 18.4 overs (Travis Head 76, Heinrich Klaasen 65 not out; AM Ghazanfar 2/51).
