Govt asks Twitter, YouTube to take down deo ads that made rape jokes

The Information and Broadcasting Ministry Saturday asked Twitter and YouTube to take down a deodorant brand’s advertisement videos that appeared to trivialise sexual violence.

The advertising industry’s self-regulatory body, too, found the Layer’r Shot ad to be against its guidelines and told the company to suspend it.

The ministry wrote to Twitter and YouTube Saturday stating that the ads violated the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

It flagged “certain videos which appear to be an advertisement of a company, and are being posted by several users on the intermediary platform Twitter”.