Amitabh Bachchan’s 11-year-old granddaughter Aaradhya Bachchan is suing YouTube over ‘fake news’
The 11-year-old granddaughter of Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan has sued YouTube for spreading “fake news” about her “life and health”.
According to local reports, videos of Aaradhya Bachchan containing fake information about her health condition are being circulated on YouTube.
The plaintiff, the daughter of actors Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Abhishek Bachchan, filed her complaint in the Delhi High Court on Wednesday (April 19).
In response, the court suspended nine YouTube channels, barring them from creating, posting, uploading or sharing content related to Aaradhya’s health.
The Supreme Court also ordered Google to remove and disable videos that are the subject of the case.
“Every child is entitled to respect, whether they are a child of a celebrity or a commoner,” Judge C Hari Shankar said, according to India Today. “Giving misleading information to a child, particularly in relation to physical and mental health, is totally illegal under the law.
“Defendants are also prohibited from creating, uploading or distributing videos that are identical or similar in content to the videos that are the subject of the above URLs,” the judge said.
“It is clarified that this would include any videos dealing with the plaintiff’s physical condition.
“In other words, the defendants are completely restrained from disseminating information about the plaintiff’s mental or physical health on any platform available on the Internet.”
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In response, YouTube’s lawyer said it would provide the actual information of the people running all the channels responsible for distributing videos from Aaradhya.
“They provided the URLs, they will also be delisted,” the lawyer said, according to the economic times.
“Children must be treated equally – whether celebrity children or otherwise – the court has said that intermediaries should have a zero-tolerance policy towards such fake news, which is as harmful to a child as that of child pornography,” Aaradhya’s lawyer said Ameet Naik.
In 2021, Abhishek Bachchan lashed out at trolls targeting his daughter on social media.
“This is totally unacceptable and something I will not tolerate,” the actor told Bollywood Life.
“I’m a public figure, that’s fine, my daughter is out of bounds. If you have something to say, come and say it to my face.”
