The Supreme Court on Thursday (November 27, 2025) asked the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to work on guidelines against user-generated content (UGC) to protect innocents from becoming victims of obscene, even perverse, “anti-national” or personally damaging online content. The top court considered the idea of an “impartial and autonomous authority”, neither bound to private broadcasters nor the government, to vet “prima facie permissible” content.
A Bench of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi said UGC, potentially disastrous to reputations or even having “adult content”, go viral even before social media intermediaries could take them down.
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At one point, referring to the easy access to uncurated material online, the court said a few seconds of ‘adult content’ warning was not enough. It suggested further checks such as sharing Aadhaar details to verify the age of the user.
The Chief Justice found it “very strange” the phenomenon that users could create their own online channels and still be not accountable to anyone. “Is there no sense of responsibility,” he asked.
