 "Fake YouTube videos claimed Aaradhya Bachchan ‘no more’: How the Delhi high court lambasted them")
What is the Aaradhya Bachchan case? Being a celebrity kid comes with a price of its own. There is no escaping the public eye and you are under constant scrutiny. Aaradhya Bachchan, the daughter of Bollywood actors Abhishek and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and the granddaughter of superstar Amitabh Bachchan, has been facing paps since she was a toddler. Now 11, she has moved Delhi high court against a YouTube channel for allegedly reporting fake news about her health with a report claiming that she is no more. The high court, which was hearing the plea, on Thursday completely restrained nine entities running YouTube channels from sharing on platforms across the internet any content related to the health or physical condition of Aaradhya Bachchan. Aaradhya vs YouTube channels
Aaradhya Bachchan has dragged several YouTube channels to court over publishing misinformation about her. She has sought an injunction against such reporting since she is a minor. Injuction is a judicial process by which one who has invaded or is threatening the rights, legal or equitable of another, is ordered to refrain from doing so. The petition filed by Aaradhya asked 10 entities to “de-list and deactivate all videos” about her. Google, which owns YouTube, and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Grievance Cell) were also been made parties in the case, according to a report by Zoom TV. According to the petition filed by the law firm Anand and Naik, the motivation of these YouTube channels was to “unlawfully profit from the reputation of the Bachchan family”, irrespective of the damage caused to Aaradhya and her family members. There have been videos circulating on the platform that Aaradhya Bachchan is critically ill with one even claiming that she is no more. Several videos on entertainment channels on YouTube from last year also talk about Aaradhya’s “leg problem” because of which she “can’t walk properly”. Some have also claimed that her ‘shocking height” is because of the alleged limb condition. [caption id=“attachment_12480752” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Aaradhya Bachchan with her mother Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.
Image courtesy: aishwaryaraibachchan_arb[/caption] The HC restrains YouTube channels The Delhi high court has granted an order of injunction against the infringers and uploaders from uploading the infringing videos and”‘any such content which infringes privacy and gives false news” about Aaradhya. It has also directed Google and YouTube to give details of the infringers including their contact number and email addresses. A single-judge bench of Justice C Hari Shankar restrained the defendants from “creating, publishing, uploading, sharing or disseminating any videos which are identical or similar in content to the videos forming the subject matter” of the URLs (uniform resource locator) mentioned in the application. The court clarified that this would “encompass all videos which deal with the physical condition” of Aaradhya, according to a report in The Indian Express. After going through the images and clips provided in the plea, Justice Shankar said, “Though it’s not the first time that such misleading information is being circulating in respect of celebrities where the information alleged to a child of tender years, it reflects a morbid perversity on the part of the persons circulating such information, with complete apathy to the interests of the child in question.” “…every child is to be treated with honour and respect be it a child of a celebrity or a commoner” and dissemination of misleading information to a child especially as regards the physical and mental health is “completely intolerable in law”, he remarked. Senior advocate Dayan Krishnan, who was appearing on behalf of Aaradhya, pointed out that though the minor was a healthy school-going child certain miscreants merely for the sake of publicity over a period of time were circulating videos on YouTube and stating that she was critically ill and that one of the videos claim that she was no more. A ‘landmark judgement’ Ameet Naik, who was representing Aaradhya and Abhishek in the court called it a ‘landmark judgment’, reports News18. “It is a landmark judgment on 3 counts: an injunction which upholds privacy of a child, against disseminating false and fake news about a child which is harmful to a child and against defamation. Children must be treated with parity, whether celebrity child or otherwise… court has said that the intermediaries should have a zero-tolerance policy on such fake news which is harmful to a child same as that for child pornography.” Facing trolls The Aaradhya Bachchan health news is not the first case of misinformation about her. Like several star kids, Aaradhya has been
targeted by trolls. During the promotion of his 2021 film Bob Biswas,
Abhishek hit out at those sending hateful messages targeting his daughter on social media. “While it’s completely unacceptable and something that I will not tolerate. I’m a public figure that’s fine, my daughter is out of bounds. If you have anything to say, come and say it to my face,” the actor said in an interview with BollywoodLife.
Aaradhya is a student of the Dhirubhai Ambani International School in Mumbai and is often photographed with her parents at social events, airports and more. Most recently, she was spotted at the star-studded launch of the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre in Mumbai.
Fake news on YouTube Fake news is prevalent on several social media and digital platforms including YouTube. YouTube has chalked out guidelines on how it deals with misinformation. According to the platform, it removes content that violates our policies, reduces recommendations of borderline content, raises up authoritative sources for news and information and rewards trusted creators, a principle it refers to as fours Rs. In January last year, a global coalition of fact-checking organisations said that YouTube was a “major conduit” of online disinformation and misinformation worldwide and is not doing enough to tackle the spread of falsehoods on its platform. “YouTube is allowing its platform to be weaponised by unscrupulous actors to manipulate and exploit others, and to organise and fundraise themselves. Current measures are proving insufficient,” the letter addressed to YouTube’s then-chief executive, Susan Wojcicki stated. According to a report in The Gaudian, the letter urged YouTube to make four changes to its operations: a commitment to funding independent research into disinformation campaigns on the platform; providing links to rebuttals inside videos distributing disinformation and misinformation; stopping its algorithms from promoting repeat offenders; and doing more to tackle falsehoods in non-English-language videos. In December last year, the Indian government asked YouTube to take down three channels for spreading fake news: Aaj Tak Live, News Headlines and Sarkari Updates. With inputs from agencies Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
