Delhi High Court directs takedown of fake, obscene content on member of YouTube channel Slayy Point

The Delhi High Court recently directed Meta, X Corp, Google, Reddit and others to immediately take down fake, obscene content pertaining to a member of the YouTube channel ‘Slayy Point’.

Justice Vikas Mahajan passed the takedown order upon noting the obscene content on a pen drive.

“The pen drive containing the objectionable and defamatory material was handed over across the Bar. On prima facie perusal of the same it appears that the content is completely defamatory, derogatory and is a patent breach of the plaintiffs’ fundamental right to privacy,” the Court observed. 

The Court restrained websites from uploading, sharing and disseminating any more explicit images of the woman.

The Court also directed the social media intermediaries to share the basic subscriber details of the defendants pertaining to their respective platforms. The Court further directed Google to de-index the links from the Google search engine.

The Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) shall block the offending websites, the Court directed.

The plaintiffs are content creators operating under the name ‘Slayy Point’, with over ten million following on social media. 

Senior Advocate Diya Kapur and Advocate Nakul Gandhi appeared before Court seeking  seeking takedown of the content creator’s fake AI-generated, obscene content circulating on websites and social media platforms. 

Slayy Point also sought directions to intermediaries to take proactive measures to ensure that such material is not uploaded.

Kapur submitted that Slayy Point is a well-known YouTube channel and Google shows obscene content on searching the woman’s name. 

Kapur told the Court that ‘Slayy Point’ had complained to X Corp seeking takedown of the obscene content, but the request was not acted upon.

“According to X, adult content is permissible, you can share adult nudity or sexual behaviour completely contrary to law of the land. How can X’s policy be contrary to Indian law? You cannot permit obscene lewd images to be uploaded under the IT Act and IT Rules,” Kapur argued.

The Court allowed the plaint and sought replies from the defendants. Owing to the sensitivity of the case, the Court allowed the request to mask the plaintiffs’ names in the order.

The matter is posted for next hearing on January 30. 

Along with Kapur, Advocates Nakul Gandhi, Mridul Crystelle Singh, Siddhi Sahoo, Aditya Ladha, Raghav Kumar and Mujeeb appeared for Slayy Point.

Advocates Ankit Parihar, Sneha Dey and Shreya Gupta appeared for Reddit.

Advocates Ankit Parihar and Abhishek Kumar appeared for X Corp.

Advocates Mamta Rani Jha, Shrutitima Ehersa, Rohan Ahuja, Aishwarya Debardarshini and Jahanvi Agarwal appeared for Google.

[Read order]