The Delhi High Court’s interim order directing social media platforms to remove fake profiles, channels and deepfake videos allegedly using Drishti IAS founder Vikas Divyakirti’s identity has moved a familiar internet problem into a sharper legal question: where should responsibility lie when platform features are used to distort a person’s identity, speech and image?
Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani issued the directions on September 29 while hearing a suit filed by Mr. Divyakirti, who sought protection against the alleged unauthorised use of his name, image and identity online. The case concerns more than the removal of individual posts. It brings together three difficult and overlapping questions: how platforms should respond to impersonation and deepfakes, whether edited material can violate copyright or personality rights, and whether automated or user-driven takedown systems can protect people without becoming instruments for arbitrary censorship.
The immediate allegations, as recorded in the proceedings, involved fake profiles, channels and deepfake videos. Senior Advocate Diya Kapur, representing Mr. Divyakirti, told the court that his image had been used in deepfake videos, including one promoting a betting platform. She also submitted that portions of his lectures had been selectively edited and re-captioned to create an impression different from the original material.
These allegations show how identity misuse can operate through several layers at once. A fake profile may imitate a person’s name and image. A deepfake may make that person appear to say or endorse something they never said. An edited lecture may begin with genuine material but alter its apparent meaning through selective cutting or new captions. The legal problem is therefore not limited to whether a post is authentic. It also concerns how an authentic piece of content is transformed when it is redistributed through a platform.
The court’s questions about Instagram’s remixing feature are significant in that context. The feature allows users to create a new reel using another person’s video. Meta’s counsel said he would examine the concerns raised by the court and argued that intermediaries could not be expected to be responsible for every misuse of a platform feature. He also cautioned against requiring platforms to monitor all user activity.
That exchange places the case within a recurring institutional tension. Platforms provide the infrastructure through which content is uploaded, copied, edited and circulated, but the court must decide how far their responsibility extends when users misuse those tools. A broad duty to monitor everything could impose an unworkable burden on intermediaries. A narrow duty, however, may leave people facing the consequences of impersonation or manipulated content while the material spreads through systems designed for rapid sharing.
The proceedings do not establish a final legal rule on that question. The court kept open for further consideration whether editing or re-captioning lecture videos in a manner that allegedly alters their meaning would amount to infringement of copyright or personality rights. That distinction matters because the same item of content may raise different legal interests. Copyright concerns the protected material itself, while personality rights relate to the unauthorised commercial or misleading use of an individual’s identity. The court’s eventual reasoning will determine how these claims interact when original lectures are taken out of context and presented as something else.
The case also exposes the limitations of takedown systems. The court heard arguments about copyright strike mechanisms used by social media platforms and observed that a false copyright complaint could lead to an immediate takedown. The affected creator might then have to undergo a longer process to have the material restored.
This creates an asymmetry between removal and restoration. Taking content down can be quick because platforms may act on a complaint to limit potential legal exposure or prevent further circulation. Restoring content requires a review of the complaint, the material and the claimant’s rights. If the initial complaint is false or mistaken, the person whose content was removed bears the burden of reversing the decision. The court’s observation identifies a governance problem within the platform environment: the speed of enforcement may not be matched by the speed or accessibility of correction.
For public figures and educators, the consequences can be especially complicated. Their lectures, interviews and public appearances are already available in formats that can be copied and recirculated. In this case, the alleged misuse involved material associated with an education institution and a well-known public identity, but the source report does not establish how many users viewed the disputed content, how many accounts were involved or whether the alleged betting promotion generated any commercial benefit. Those details remain important to the final assessment of harm.
The case also demonstrates why content moderation cannot be understood only as a technical process. A platform may be able to identify duplicated video, but duplication alone does not establish whether the use is lawful. An edited video may be satire, commentary, criticism, infringement, impersonation or fraud depending on its presentation and context. Similarly, a profile using another person’s name may be obvious impersonation in one situation but parody or fan content in another. The court’s intervention suggests that the legal assessment may need to examine not only the content but also the feature, context and apparent meaning created by the platform’s distribution tools.
The institutional roles are therefore divided. The court is being asked to protect the claimant’s identity and determine the legal significance of the alleged uses. The platforms must respond to specific directions while defending the limits of their responsibility for user activity. The claimant must establish the nature of the alleged misuse and the rights affected. Users, meanwhile, operate within features that make copying and transformation easy but do not necessarily explain the legal consequences of those actions.
The Delhi High Court deepfake case is also a test of how interim relief works in a rapidly changing digital environment. The court has directed removal at this stage, but several underlying questions remain open. The order, as described in the supplied report, is interim and does not amount to a final determination that every disputed item infringed copyright or personality rights. The court must still consider the arguments over edited and re-captioned lectures, platform features and copyright strikes.
That unfinished legal process is important. A takedown order may address the immediate circulation of allegedly harmful content, but it does not by itself resolve how similar disputes should be handled in the future. Nor does it determine whether a platform’s design creates a special responsibility when it actively enables users to reuse, remix or re-caption another person’s video. Those issues require a more precise distinction between hosting content and providing tools that facilitate its transformation and distribution.
The larger urban and institutional question is one of accountability in digitally mediated public life. Social platforms now function as major public communication spaces, while private companies control the features through which reputations, educational material and commercial messages travel. Courts are increasingly required to examine not only individual posts but also the systems that make those posts easy to create and difficult to retract.
The proceedings confirm that the conflict is not simply between one individual and anonymous online users. It is also between the speed of platform circulation and the slower processes of legal review. The court’s interim directions address the immediate allegations, while its questions about Instagram’s remix feature and copyright strike mechanisms point to unresolved rules for platform responsibility. The next significant development will be the court’s consideration of whether altered or re-captioned lecture videos can infringe copyright or personality rights, and how the parties’ arguments shape the future treatment of such disputes.
