Tech giants Google and Meta have told the Delhi High Court that it is not possible to proactively monitor or remove unauthorised recordings of court proceedings uploaded on their platforms, including YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.
The companies submitted their affidavits in a petition filed by lawyer Vaibhav Singh, alleging that videos of former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s April 13 court appearance were illegally recorded and circulated on social media.
The petition sought removal of the clips and contempt action against Kejriwal, AAP leaders Manish Sisodia, Sanjay Singh and others, including Congress leader Digvijaya Singh and journalist Ravish Kumar.
A bench of Justices V Kameswar Rao and Manmeet P S Arora adjourned the hearing to August 27, noting that some respondents were yet to receive notices.
Meta said it cannot act as a “super censor” and monitor billions of posts uploaded daily across Facebook and Instagram. It stated that content is removed when specific unlawful material is reported or when there is a court order, but intermediaries have no legal duty to conduct proactive monitoring.
Google similarly said YouTube receives millions of uploads every hour, making it impossible to identify every video or determine whether it violates any law. Both companies said liability, if any, rests with the uploader of the content.
Journalist Ravish Kumar denied uploading the clips, saying his post on X only involved journalistic commentary on material already in the public domain.
The court had earlier stated that unauthorised recording and publication of court proceedings violated its rules and sought responses from social media platforms regarding removal of the videos.
