Aaradhya Bachchan case: HC berates YouTube for 'providing platform for misleading info'

The Delhi High Court on Thursday reprimanded YouTube, a popular video-sharing platform, over the "fake news" reports regarding Aaradhya Bachchan, the daughter of Bollywood actors Abhishek and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. Notably, Aaradhya had moved to HC against some YouTube channels for spreading fake news about her health. 

A bench headed by Justice C Hari Shankar slammed YouTube, which is a Google owned video-sharing platform, and asked why the company does not have some policy in such matters. "When you're told these types of YouTubes are circulating, should there not be some way of handling these things? You are a YouTube platform, don't you have some responsibility for such kinds of things?" the court asked.

The HC stated that the company is providing a platform on which "misleading information" is circulated to the people. "You mean to say you're only providing a facility for people to only misinform the public... You are providing a platform on which misleading information is circulating to the public. How can such a thing be tolerated?" the HC asked the YouTube counsel.

YouTube is not running on charity: Delhi HC 

Lambasting the video-sharing platform, the HC said, "Are you not profiting from each one of these? Are you allowing people to upload for free?... Doesn’t YouTube have some sort of responsibility in such cases?" 

"Aren’t you supposed to stop people from uploading misleading content? Don’t just say we are providing pen and paper to them but not responsible for what they write," the Court told YouTube. 

Making a sharp remark, the court said, "YouTube is not running on charity. It’s a profit-making platform. If you’re making money out of what you’re doing, you have a social responsibility. You cannot allow such clips to be posted. If you have a zero-tolerance policy then you yourself acknowledge that certain types of content should fall into it. How does this not qualify? Your zero-tolerance policy is faulty."