I&B Ministry Suspends Controversial Perfume Advertisement, An Inquiry Has Also Been Initiated

The Information and Broadcasting Ministry ordered the suspension of a controversial deodorant advertisement on Saturday. The ad in question allegedly spoke about women in a derogatory manner and was heavily criticised by netizens for promoting rape culture.

An inquiry has also been initiated by the ministry as per the advertising code whilst swinging into action by suspending the advertisement within hours of coming to its notice. It must be noted that many social media users reported the controversial TVC, forcing the government to take action.

A top source in the I&B Ministry was quoted by ANI as saying, "This is completely unacceptable and we have taken action as per the advertisement code." Meanwhile, the ministry has also written to social media giants such as Twitter and YouTube, asking them to immediately take down the advertisement from their platforms.

The letter addressed to Twitter and YouTube said, "The above-mentioned videos are detrimental to the portrayal of women in the interest of decency or morality, and in violation of rule 3(1)(b)(ii) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, which inter-alia provides that the users shall not host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update or share any information which is insulting or harassing on the basis of gender."

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The I&B ministry letter further added, "In light of the above and in accordance with rule 3(1)(d) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, the intermediary Twitter is hereby notified under clause (b) of sub-section (3) of section 79 of the Act not to host the tweets containing the concerned videos on its platform."

In the meantime, The Advertising Standard Council of India also took to its Twitter account and said that they have taken immediate action and notified the advertiser to suspend the advertisement.