The efforts of the legal team of Congress leader Abhishek Manu Singhvi to keep the contents of an alleged controversial video away from public reach were frustrated by social media platforms such as YouTube and Facebook today. Within hours of Singhvis lawyers obtaining a permanent injunction from the Delhi High Court against the publication or broadcast of the contents of the reported video allegedly containing sexual acts on Thursday,the video was out on YouTube and had been viewed,commented upon and circulated across the Internet. Almost 13 minutes long,the video Singhvi has called it fabricated and defamatory was also linked to a Facebook page belonging to a person identifying himself as True Nationalist. Live on the page till 6 pm,the video was viewed by more than 350 people before it was removed. The YouTube video was removed several times but kept popping up repeatedly and was sent as link by several across different online platforms. Half hour past midnight,the video was on Twitvid with 24,059 views. Sources in Singhvis team said they were constantly reaching out to online platforms and seeking the removal of the video. Singhvis associates maintained that the permanent injunction received yesterday applied to the social media too. There is a permanent injunction against the publication,broadcast,dissemination or distribution in any manner or form of the content (in the alleged CD). The dissemination of the fabricated videos of Dr Singhvi is violative of this injunction, said Abhimanyu Bhandari on behalf of Singhvi. Bhandari,who is also one of the plaintiffs in the case,added: Dr Singhvi reserves the right to take legal action against the offenders. An executive of a well-known media platform,however,said that the court order needs to specifically mentions the URL of the contested video or spell out its content. Without responding to the questions sent by The Indian Express,a Google spokesperson sent a statement saying: As a matter of policy,we dont comment on individual videos on YouTube. However,our policy prohibits posting of inappropriate content on YouTube and our community effectively polices the site for inappropriate material. The users can flag content they feel is inappropriate and it is reviewed by our staff and removed from the system if it violates our Community Guidelines. The statement further said: We do remove the content if we get specific court order. Facebook did not respond.
