Department of Telecommunications ISP blocking directives (under the IT Act framework)

In early 2019, users and digital-rights groups reported that Reddit, along with Telegram and SoundCloud, became intermittently inaccessible across major Indian ISPs including Reliance Jio, Airtel, and Hathway. The blocking was widely linked to opaque Department of Telecommunications directives that followed an October 2018 order targeting hundreds of pornography-related sites. There was no official public explanation, and the disruption was regional and intermittent rather than a nationwide permanent ban. Reddit did not publicly comment at the time. The episode illustrates how India's site-blocking mechanism can sweep in general-purpose platforms with little transparency.