PULL DOWN ADS, CENTRAL GOVT ASKS TWITTER AND YOUTUBE

NEW DELHI: Twitter and Youtube must immediately take down two advertisements of a perfume company for promoting sexual violence against women and violating gender safety rules, the information and broadcasting ministry has directed, officials familiar with the matter told HT.

The videos were detrimental to the acceptable portrayal of women, and violated the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, said an official who did not want to be named. Users cannot “host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store,update or share any information which is insulting or harassing on the basis of gender,” the rules say.

Swati Maliwal, chief of the Delhi Commission for Women, wrote to information and broadcasting minister Anurag Thakur on Saturday, detailing the dialogue in the advertisements and requesting that they be taken down. HT has seen the letter.

“This advertisement is clearly promoting sexual violence against women and girls and encouraging a rapist mentality amongst men. The advertisement is cringeworthy and should not be allowed to be played on mass media,” Maliwal wrote about one of the ad films.

Both advertisements should be taken off the air, she demanded, and sought robust systems to ensure check and balances “to make sure that such filthy advertisements that promote rape culture are never played again on mass media”.

“One of the ways to ensure that companies refrain from playing such dirty tactics for cheap publicity would be to impose a heavy penalty on this particular company for its antiwomen advertisement,” Maliwal wrote. “I am of the view that this step of the government will create a strong deterrence and discourage others from creating similar advertisements.”

BOTH ADS SHOULD BE TAKEN OFF AIR: SWATI MALIWAL