New Delhi : The Supreme Court (SC) addressed issues related to India’s Got Talent case on Thursday. The case had drawn attention to several YouTubers, including Ranveer Allahbadia and Samay Raina. The court also commented on concerns about content labelled as “anti-national”.
Justice Joymalya Bagchi, who was also on the bench, asked whether creators would accept responsibility when their content is viewed in that light. “Where the content is perceived as anti-national. Will the content creator take responsibility for?” Justice Bagchi asked.
He noted the difficulty in managing viral content: “The difficulty we are facing is the response time,” he said. “Once the scurrilous material is uploaded, by the time the authorities react, it has gone viral, to millions of viewers, so how do you control that?”
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Centre, argued that the case involved not only obscenity but also perversion. He highlighted a gap in the regulation of user-generated content. He stated, “Freedom of speech is a precious right, but it cannot extend to perversity.”
The Supreme Court stressed that someone must be held accountable for the content uploaded on social media, NDTV reported. Chief Justice Surya Kant said, “This is the problem, so I create my own channel, I am not accountable to anyone… somebody has to be accountable.”
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing a disabled professor seeking to join the proceedings, cautioned that branding content as anti-national could do more harm than good.
Justice Bagchi replied, “Forget shreds of anti-national, supposing there is a video which shows that this part is not part of India, what do you do about that?”
According to a report by NDTV, the court questioned the Centre on why such cases continue to arise if a monitoring system already exists. It then gave the government four weeks to propose regulations for handling user-generated content on social media.
Justice Bagchi said, “There should be a warning for someone who may be shocked by such content. Not just above 18… To say that it has content not suitable for general consumption.”
The court said that an autonomous regulatory body can comprise a combination of different experts, including those from the judiciary and the media. “Let something come up on a pilot basis, and if it clogs free speech and expression, it can be looked at then. We need to build a responsible society, and once that happens, most of the problems will be solved,” it said.
