The Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry on Saturday directed Twitter and YouTube to remove videos of two advertisements of a deodorant brand for “detrimental portrayal” of women.
In e-mails sent to YouTube and Twitter, the ministry said that the videos were being widely seen and shared on the two platforms. The advertisements have already been taken off television, after the Advertising Standards Council of India took action on Friday.
The government’s decision came after social media users called out the brand Layer’r Shot for “encouraging rape culture” in the advertisements.
The advertisements were being aired during a cricket match broadcast on Friday, according to NDTV.
On Friday, the Advertising Standards Council of India had said that the commercials were in “serious breach of the ASCI Code [guidelines for self-regulation in advertisements] and against public interest”.
The council directed the advertiser to suspend the commercials immediately pending further investigation.
On Saturday, the ministry’s notice to the social media platforms said that the videos were “detrimental to the portrayal of women in the interest of decency or morality”.
They violated Rule 3(1)(b)(ii) of the Information Technology Rules 2021, which states that users may not “host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update or share any information which is insulting or harassing on the basis of gender”.
The Delhi Commission for Women also issued a notice to the police seeking to register a first information report against the deodorant brand.
“The deodorant advertisement blatantly promotes the rape mentality in the country,” Swati Maliwal, chairperson of the Delhi Commission for Women told ANI on Saturday.
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