New Delhi: Maharashtra Police filed a case against YouTube India on Thursday after the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) raised concerns over “indecent content” involving mothers and sons on the popular Google-owned online video sharing and social media platform.
A specific YouTube channel has been charged under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) for posting mother-son ‘challenge videos’.
The child rights body has asked YouTube India’s government affairs and public policy head to appear before it in person on January 15 with a list of such channels.
The ‘challenge videos’ reportedly featured indecent acts between mothers and adolescent sons, such as kisses.
In a letter to Mira Chatt, YouTube’s head of government affairs and public policy in India, NCPCR chief Priyank Kanoongo has stated that the commission took cognisance of an alarming trend of potentially indecent acts involving mothers and sons being portrayed on YouTube channels.
“Several challenge videos on YouTube featuring mothers and sons violate the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act, 2012. YouTube will have to fix this. Offenders will have to go to jail. The commercialisation of such videos is like selling porn. Any platform which features videos where children have been sexually abused will have to go to jail,” Kanoongo was quoted as saying by India Today TV.
