The Supreme Court Monday agreed with concerns about obscenity on OTT platforms and social media, and said the Centre must do something within the law to address it.
While hearing a (PIL) by journalist and former information commissioner Uday Mahurkar and others, a bench of Justices B R Gavai and A G Masih also issued notice to the Centre and OTT platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, AltBalaji, Ullu Digital, and Mubi, and social media platforms X Corp, , Meta Inc, and .
Advocate Vishnu Shankar Jain, who appeared for the petitioners, said the litigation is not adversarial and raises a genuine concern. Jain also submitted that the content was floating on social media platforms without any restriction.
Justice Gavai then told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, who appeared for the Centre, “Do something… Something legislative.”
Pointing out that objectionable content appeared even in some regular programmes, Mehta said some are so perverted that even two respectable people cannot sit and watch them together. Mehta also said there should not be censorship and added, “There is some regulation in place, some is in contemplation.”
Issuing notice, the bench said in its order, “This petition raises an important concern with regard to the display of various objectionable, obscene, and indecent contents on OTT platforms and social media. Learned Solicitor General fairly states that the contents go to the extent of perversity. He submits that certain more regulations are in contemplation.”
Filed in March this year, the plea highlighted “an urgent and growing societal concern that threatens to corrupt the moral fabric of future generations, i.e. unrestricted access to obscene content, sexually perverted content, paedophilic, incestuous, bestiality as well as other kinds of pornographic content on the internet.”
“What was once an individual vice has now transformed into a widespread issue, infiltrating every corner of digital platforms, from social media to Over-The-Top (OTT) streaming services. If left unchecked, this unregulated spread of obscene material could have severe consequences on societal values, mental health and public safety,” it said.
“The unchecked circulation of such material, including child pornography and soft-core adult content, has contributed to a rising trend of crimes against women and children while negatively shaping the psychological development of young minds.”
The petitioners said “they had made representations/complaints before the competent authorities, institutions, etc., however, the same have yielded no effective result. The government, despite being fully aware of the gravity of this situation, has failed to take any significant steps to regulate this menace.”
“A growing number of online spaces, including social media giants like X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and Meta (formerly ), openly facilitate the dissemination of explicit content without adequate restrictions/censorship. Simultaneously, OTT platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Ullu, ALTT (formerly, ALT Balaji), etc. continue to stream highly explicit content, some of which violates child rights and safety due to such sexually deviant material,” said the plea.
“The lack of effective oversight has allowed these platforms to promote content that fosters unhealthy and perverse tendencies, particularly among impressionable youth. This uncontrolled exposure to explicit material has serious consequences. The constant consumption of such content alters perceptions of sexuality, fuels deviant behaviours and contributes to rising incidents of sexual offences against women and children,” it added.
