Introduction
WhiteHat Jr. is an online platform that provides tuition assistance for kids to learn coding languages. Founded in 2018 by Karan Bajaj, the firm was bought by the Edutech giant Byju’s for a 300 million dollar in an all-cash deal.
The introduction to WhiteHat Sr. is a little more complicated. Unlike WhiteHat Jr. it is not a million-dollar firm, in fact, it is just a single person run YouTube account. Pradeep Poonia on 11th September 2020 uploaded a video with an aim of public awareness under the name of WhiteHat Sr.
Aiplex International Pvt. Ltd., a firm that recognizes itself as India’s first anti-piracy agency, has Byju’s (the owner of WhiteHat Jr.) listed among its clients. A majority of social media content that was directed at Byju’s and WhiteHat Jr. was taken down for different violations that were reported by this firm.
The Battle
The controversy began when Pradeep Poonia uploaded a video titled, “The difference between Byju’s and WhiteHat Jr.”, which was a basic DIY dissent. Surprisingly two days later, YouTube took down the video citing ‘copyright infringement’. This was unexpected and unfair since Poonia’s video had no logo or material that could have been protected by the rights of the Edutech giant. But this was just the beginning of a frenzy of takedowns that followed, over the next few days, Poonia’s 15 videos were taken down across different social media platforms like Reddit, YouTube, etc. that were uploaded from a number of different accounts.
When Poonia’s request to reinstate his content was rejected it left him with 3 choices, first do nothing, second to enter into conversation with the offended party and discuss the terms of negotiation, this is where things get tricky. Since the content was not reported by Byju’s but by Aiplex International Pvt. Ltd, the former actually has no right to take down the video directly since it does not own the content targeted in the video. And the third option Poonia has is to approach the legal bodies, something that he has done now.
The controversial aspects
- YouTube / Social Media Platforms:
Every time a video was taken down the reason cited varied. Starting from copyright infringement the platform went on to accuse the owner of derogatory content, guideline violation, and several other things. Hence there was uncertainty and inconsistency in the reaction of the website. In fact, to prove this Poonia uploaded the same video twice only to observe that while one of them was taken down the other remained on the website uncensored, hence proving the subjectivity of the censorship guidelines.
Another discrepancy by social media is to save effort. It provides firms like Aiplex with a tool that empowers them to take down the content themselves if it violates the platform’s guidelines, something that Aiplex certainly exploited to keep its clients happy.
- Aiplex International:
The firm took down content that in no way had any copyright infringement. Then why did it do it. The answer is simple, to save time. While other offences are taken on a case to case basis by the social media platform, bookings made under the copyright infringement are taken down immediately.
- Byju’s / WhiteHat Jr.:
While the firm’s sales strategies have always been questionable, it’s online silencing of dissent is definitely seen as a misuse of power and resources. Even after such a controversy, the firm refuses to have made any direct contact with the person accused as an offender and prefers to settle this in court than in person.
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