Acrimony over online influencer Ranveer Allahabadia’s comments in a YouTube video has rattled India’s ₹2,400 crore creator economy, with many digital content creators pulling videos, reviewing content and censoring their own work.
Allahbadia, who runs the BeerBiceps YouTube channel with over 8 million subscribers, faced severe backlash for his comments in comedian Samay Raina’s India’s Got Latent show. Facing police complaints, the YouTuber approached the Supreme Court, which termed his comments “perverted”, barred him from YouTube shows and banned him from leaving the country. It also asked the Attorney General to address broader concerns about obscene content on online platforms. Separately, a parliamentary panel has directed the information and broadcasting ministry to suggest legal amendments to address controversial online content.
While creator-led shows make it to streaming platforms like JioHotstar, good content from independent creators is getting pulled down, lamented Mohit Mamoria, who co-creates quizzes on ‘Arey pata hai,’ a channel with close to 800,000 subscribers.
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Nervous creators are widely self-censoring content, Mamoria said. “Creating content in this landscape has become very difficult as anything you say online can be deemed offensive by someone or the other, undermining the larger impact content can have on the media and marketing industry,” he said. A debate show planned on his channel has been scrapped following the controversy.
Raina, who has deleted India’s Got Latent episodes from his YouTube channel has also delayed the planned shows, a person aware of the matter said on the condition of anonymity. Queries emailed to Allahabadia’s team and Raina remained unanswered.
Comic Harsh Gujral, who had aired two episodes of ‘Escape Room,’ a similar roast show with a confession-like format, has archived them. Gujral has nearly 3 million followers on Instagram and 2.5 million subscribers on YouTube,
“The controversy has put everyone in a guarded position. Creators are being cautious about the content that they have posted or are posting. Hence, as a precautionary measure to avoid any unforeseen impact that hampers anyone’s sentiments, a strategic approach has been implemented as per the current landscape,” an associate of Gujral said in the condition of anonymity.
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Tough times
Creators are left to speculate how the events might unfold. “Either this will lead to the government imposing tighter regulations around social media, or an industry lobby will come together to oppose it and foster freedom of speech and content creation. In either case, the times are going to be tough for creators, and they will have to stand strong and steer through this upcoming storm to survive,” said Ayaz Ahmed, an actor-turned-influencer with 157,000 followers on Instagram.
The developments have upset marketers too.
“This is a hiccup that has momentarily dampened the marketing industry due to the extensive contribution from influencers,” said Sahil Chopra, founder of Adtech platform iCubesWire and chairman and founding member of industry body India Influencer Governance Council. “The industry seeks content regulation but also struggles to find a way to do the same at the size and scale of the 47 million Reels that are produced in India every day,” he added.
A senior lawyer said new regulations would hurt the booming creator industry.
“If the government prescribes intermediaries (social media platforms) to review and suggest changes, not only might it make them the author of the content and not a mere publishing platform, it might just take us back to the days of Orkut when it took over two days to get the testimonials reviewed and uploaded,” said Gauhar Mirza, a partner at law firm Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, who specializes in tech law. Orkut was among the earliest social networking platforms on the internet.
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“If the upcoming regulations put the burden of compliance on the creators and demand licensing, the complications might just lead to a lot of influencers giving up on content creation overall,” Mirza added.
As per the latest data from influencer intelligence platform Qoruz, there are over 4.06 million influencers in India.
