Hyderabad: Justice NV Shravan Kumar of the Telangana high court has directed YouTube, the video sharing platform, to ensure that no content be uploaded on its platform which causes harassment to any citizen and infringes the privacy of a person. Asking the platform to ensure fair use of its channels, the judge said any defamatory content against a person will directly impact the personal rights of a person as guaranteed under Article 21 of the Constitution.
The judge was dealing with a petition by a realtor, Moola Shiv Kumar, who gives tips on real estate on a YouTube channel. He submitted to the court that some persons formed a YouTube channel, ‘Mimamsa Victims', and started posting defamatory content against him and his family. The video has content alleging that Shiv Kumar and his family was involved in deceiving 70 individuals and duped them of 10.86 crore under the guise of real estate investment.
The Mimamsa victims mentioned that they had been cheated by Shiv Kumar after spending crores of rupees to buy land on his advice and they gave information about cases registered against Shiv Kumar.
Shiv Kumar's contention was that the cases were pending and yet to be decided by court. Meanwhile, they started propaganda against him on the YouTube channel.
Considering it, the judge directed the channel to take precautions that no content should be uploaded which causes harassment to a person. The court also directed the YouTube to delete the defamatory content.