Abstract:
India’s digital public sphere is changing how we discuss politics, culture, and society and at the centre of this transformation is meme, a highly viral, visual combination of irony & text. While memes can serve as effective tools for social commentary, they can also be abused for targeted harassment which can cause serious damage to reputations.
This article seeks to address the crossroad of meme culture and defamation law in India. The core problem is that the legal framework in India is designed for text-based communication, thereby making it unable to deal with the fast-paced, multi-fold & decentralized nature of digital media. By analysing recent criminal provisions found in Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and framework of IT Act, the author highlights the gaps present in holding content creators accountable for their actions against others, as well as holding platforms responsible for their users’ content.
Keywords:
Defamation, Memes, Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita, Social Media, Intermediaries
Introduction:
Initially a small-scale online phenomenon, memes have become the main lens for viewing current events in India. They take minutes to create & can become viral in seconds. Their power lies in their ironic nature. The viewer has to piece together multiple references in order to understand humour. This quality presents a nightmare for the legal system. Laws on defamation were created for the world of newspapers and printed literature. It was very simple to identify a damaging statement and prove it false. Memes challenge these laws, they use sign language, visuals & interpretative comedy in ways no reasonable person could interpret their content literally. Nevertheless, they still have potential to cause very serious harm by destroying an individual’s reputation in less than one upload to the Internet.
This paper addresses an area of ambiguity and uncertainty regarding how well Indian courts are equipped to deal with a media that is created using medium that contains much ambiguity, anonymity, frequent remixing & also discusses on the liability of platforms as a consequence of Section 79 (safe harbor provision) and the 2021 Intermediary Guidelines when original creator cannot be found. Additionally, the author considers the implications of criminal defamation under Section 356 of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (hereafter BNS) & does India’s new digital framework fix colonial flaws, or just repeat them
Research Methodology:
The article adopts doctrinal legal research methodology, relying on documentary evidence, analysis of statutory provisions & judicial reasoning to identify gaps.
Literature Review:
The analysis by Palak indicates that memes are considered modern day works that are entitled to be protected by Article 19(1) of the Constitution as part of freedom of expression. However, as per Article 19(2), the right protected by Article 19(1) is subject to reasonable restrictions, which include protection of an individual’s reputation & dignity. Due to their comedic nature, irony & visual context, a majority of memes can be distorted by individuals who do not act in good faith and use them as a shield for their bad intent. In other words, an individual who creates a meme may be able to avail the defence of “it was just a harmless thing” or “it was just a joke” while attempting to destroy another person’s reputation. Thus, it is the duty of courts to look beyond the actual text and consider the overall context of memes.[1]
Sanchit Arora in his article for “JLRJS”, discusses how memes can easily mislead audiences when they are presented as if they are from a legitimate source. One of the reasons memes have so much influence over the audience is because most people only need to have a basic level of literacy to be able to view & share them, hence they can quickly influence the audience online. Arora also points out that because of the anonymity of the creator & speed at which users can copy & then republish content, following the path of liability in such cases is extremely complicated.[2]
Yajur Joshi (IJLR) describes the transition of law from Indian Penal Code (IPC), to Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) in India. Section 356 of BNS maintains the substantive definition of criminal defamation and its ten exceptions from previous Section 499 of IPC. The legal standard remains unchanged for both Statutes. In case someone making or publishing an accusation against another person through any means (word, sign, or visible representation), intending to cause injury to that person or knowing that such thing would cause injury to that person’s reputation will be subject to punishment under Section 357 BNS which may result in imprisonment for not more than 2 years or fine or both.[3]
Understanding Memes as Tools for Communication:
A meme can be defined as an artwork created, altered & distributed by users using the internet most often in the form of image or video which is continuously reproduced. There are 3 major reasons as to why memes are exempted from traditional definition of Defamation:
- Memes usually don’t make direct accusations like “X is a corrupt person”, rather they use a person’s picture with a funny or sarcastic caption, which leaves it to the discretion of the viewer to guess the meaning. Section 356 of BNS says that sarcasm or irony can be defamatory but doesn’t clarify where defamation ends & protected comedy begins.
- Meme making community consists of many people from around the world. A person created a template & then many others will edit it in their own way, thus it becomes hard to determine the creator of that meme or the person who will be held liable for it.
- Traditional law focuses on a single person who published the defamatory statement, however in memes there are multiple no. of occasions when the defamation has occurred because many people will be sharing it, thus it is impossible to sue everyone who has shared the meme.[4]
Thus, traditional law is only suited for definitive statements & is very unsuitable for the dynamic nature of memes. Fast paced digital media makes it harder for implementation of old defamation laws.[5]
The Legal Structure of Indian Defamation Law:
Defamation is an act of making a false statement that harms the reputation of a person.[6] Defamation is addressed within India as following:
In case of Civil defamation, there is a requirement that three elements be proved to establish civil defamation:
(1) false statement made regarding plaintiff;
(2) publication of that false statement to third party;
(3) damage or presumed damage to plaintiff’s reputation as a result of the false statement.[7]
Currently, courts have not formed any internet-specific defamation claims. Therefore, while there is value in holding individuals accountable for damaging statements made about a person via memes, these claims are unlikely to be practically litigated due to costs and delays involved, difficulty in assessing the damages caused & impossibility of bringing action against thousands of re-publishers if all were judged to copy the original statement.[8]
Criminal defamation process is more complex than civil defamation. Section 356(1)[9] defines “defamation as making or communicating through use of words, symbols, or other visual representations any false statement about someone that is intended to cause damage to that person’s reputation or is likely to damage that person’s reputation, knowing that the statement will damage the person’s reputation”. The addition of “visual representation” is broad enough to include photographs, images, & memes without requiring new laws.[10] However, codification still struggles with the realities of meme creation as there is a gap between traditional law & modern online content complicating how to interpret it.[11]
In addition, there are 10 statutory exceptions, such as truth in public interest, fair comment on conduct of public officials, fair comment on public issues, substantially true reporting of court cases, & reasonable belief in the quality of the performance submitted for public opinion. Thus, these exceptions provide “doctrinal space” in which a person can claim protection. The punishment for defamation under BNS is imprisonment of 2 years or fine or both.[12]
In Subramanian Swamy v Union of India[13], where constitutionality of criminal defamation was challenged. The petitioners included politicians who had criminal complaints against them for making political statements, such as Subramanian Swamy, Rahul Gandhi & Arvind Kejriwal. The supreme court ruled that Sections 499 and 500 of IPC (now 356 of BNS) are constitutional because the right to reputation is a part of right to life under Article 21 of Constitution of India.[14]
Are Social Media Platforms Liable? Exploring Safe Harbour Protections:
Because memes only exist on social media platforms, we cannot talk about meme defamation without looking at the rules for platforms hosting them. Under the Information Technology Act (hereafter IT act), these platforms are known as “intermediaries”. Over years, the rules governing their liability in what is posted has undergone massive changes. These platforms were defenceless prior to 2008. They could be sued just like the person posting them unless they prove that they had no knowledge of such a defamatory post. An example of this point can be found in case of Avnish Bajaj v State (NCT of Delhi)[15]Delhi high court here allowed for prosecution of the website for obscenity because it was unable to take preventive measures against such content, but it gave directors protection against direct criminal liability.[16] Realizing that these would affect the internet & will lead to censorship of everything, the government stepped up & changed rules which gives “safe harbor” meaning a legal shield from being liable for materials posted by their users.[17]
In 2015, the Supreme Court in Shreya Singhal v․ Union of India[18]‚ strengthened free speech & expression online by ruling that according to Section 79(3)(b) intermediaries such as social media platforms cannot be held liable for content they host unless specifically asked to remove it by a court or government order․ The court here also struck down Section 66A of IT Act‚ which was used to prosecute internet artists & comedians who sent “grossly offensive” messages․ This was a massive win for the internet community because for an excessive period, this flaw was used to bully creators & comedians just for posting edgy memes.[19]
A good example of this can be seen in the case of Google India Pvt. Ltd. v. Visaka Industries Ltd[20], Someone posted defamatory articles about Visaka Industries on Google Groups forum. Visaka sent Google a takedown notice, but Google didn’t remove the posts. Because of delay, courts refused to drop criminal charges against Google India. The judges ruled that Google knew about the posts and chose to leave them online, they were technically “publishing” the defamation themselves.[21]
The IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 outlines various due diligence obligations for intermediaries. The intermediaries must have a Chief Compliance Officer & a Resident Grievance Officer. They should publish compliance reports on a monthly basis. Intermediaries must also have a mechanism for dealing with grievances. They must on receiving the grievance resolve it within 15 days. Upon issuance of a takedown order by a court or other competent authority, they must comply with such takedown order within 36 hours of issuance & take down any content that is unlawful or defamatory. Under the obligations imposed by these rules, individuals who are victims of a defamatory meme can seek for removal of it from the platform without having to bring a legal action.[22] The success of this will depend on responsiveness of the platform and ability of the individual to prove defamatory nature of the meme to the grievance officer.
A complicating factor in this respect is that Indian Orders can, by virtue of Section 75, extend beyond the territorial jurisdiction of India. In Swami Ramdev v. Facebook Inc.[23], Delhi High Court found that Indian courts had the ability to issue an order for the takedown of material uploaded from India and required the worldwide takedown of the material. This reasoning from the court can similarly be applied to memes which can often move quickly from being posted in India to being in global feeds in a matter of hours.[24]
Critical Gaps in Contemporary Indian Law
A detailed analysis of India’s current legal framework reveals four weaknesses in relation to dealing with non-textual, meme-based defamation. These 4 are:
- The IT Rules of 2021 mandate that intermediaries should install automated filtering tools designed to identify & restrict harmful content before it goes live on their site. While text filters can quickly identify & remove many defamatory terms, they cannot do so effectively in the world of memes. Automated filters assess content as a single entity without evaluating the image so that the association between visual image and written word does not allow automated filters to identify any visual irony or pop culture references in the meme. In other words, without the ability for automated filtering solutions to evaluate memes, the automated filter creates an issue for society.[25]
- The criminal law system operates on a basic assumption that we can detect the individual who originally “wrote” the lie & punish them for doing so. However, this is not the case with a meme since it is really just an open-sourced & collaborative project where one user independently creates a template and sends it to thousands of other users who then modify, alter & forward that meme to others through other messaging applications. This decentralized web makes it almost impossible to trace back individuals who made the meme, thus leaving victims with no method for redress other than suing the people who have only clicked “share” on social media or by suing the companies in court.[26]
- Supreme Court invalidated Section 66A of the IT Act, elimination of the section was a great advancement for the preservation of free speech. However, lack of statute also created significant gaps in the ability to respond to targeted online harassment that are not overtly obscene or threatening physical harm. Law enforcement in India may continue to charge individuals of criminal defamation (Section 356 of the BNS). However, the offence of criminal defamation is “non-cognizable,” meaning that law enforcement cannot initiate an investigation or arrest without an order. In case of a rapidly growing viral smear campaign, this time-consuming process offers no ability for immediate protection for the victim.[27]
- Traditionally in civil law, a print publication containing falsehoods is an actionable event in which you can request issuance of an injunction preventing further copies being printed. What works in the traditional way fails in the digital world, where obtaining a court order to have a specific link removed, or block one user from accessing a site containing a falsehood is nearly impossible. There is also the added burden that there are several thousand new digital copies of that link available shortly after the original meme has gone viral, because users may have screenshot the original altered it & then re-uploaded it’s somewhere on the Internet. The courts operate too slowly for this nature of the Internet.[28]
Thus, using traditional defamation laws to govern contemporary memes is not very feasible. Because memes rely on irony instead of plain text, they easily slip past AI filters while leaving jokes open to interpretation. This makes tracking down a single creator almost impossible. By the time a meme causes harm, it has already been remixed and re-uploaded across thousands of links in seconds. Our slow moving legal system simply cannot keep pace with this hyper-viral speed. This leaves a massive structural disconnect, while the reputation is destroyed instantly.
Suggestions:
Moving forward, we need a system where digital culture can coexist with accountability which can be done with the help of these four reforms:
- The way courts view internet humour is too traditional. There needs to be a judicial framework that evaluates things by its identifiability, satirical content & the damage it actually does. Setting the legal tests to reflect digital realities will help eliminate unintentional and arbitrary actions by making proper rules for creators.
- India needs to establish an efficient way of managing complaints through a middle ground within the administrative system. It also needs a transparent notice & review mechanism for digital sarcasm. Platforms should be required to provide clear reasons in writing as to why specified content was removed from their site or why it wasn’t removed, which will protect the free expression of those using the platform from those who make takedown requests in bad faith.
- Many users think saying “it’s only a meme” gives them legal protection. We need to build legal knowledge in creators showing them how to freely communicate through their work without crossing the line of hateful or targeted actionable harassment.
In the end, we need a structure that can handle irony & nuance, & still have space for humor, satire, and other forms of expression that do not need the correct way to express themselves. We do not need to create a society free from any subject that may cause discomfort or offense but instead build one that is fair.
Conclusion:
This article explored how India’s laws deal with the complex nature of memes. On paper, India’s legal system has established solid foundations for modern use of meme creation and sharing. BNS’s Section 356 provides broad definitions for the creation and distribution of images and text by including terms like “visible representation” which easily apply to today’s examples of memes. However, because memes are typically considered digital assets, they also fall under ambit of the IT Act. Under which creators of memes routinely experience legal ambiguity due to inconsistent judicial interpretation of provisions relating to obscenity, such as Sections 67 & 67A, creating uncertainty about what type of content may be used for humorous purposes along with protection for intermediaries under Section 79 of the act.
The real breakdown happens in everyday practice. The current legal system is not ready for the way the internet shares information. We have not yet been able to determine if a person has written something that is defamatory based on their intent or humor, we don’t know how to find creators who are anonymous or how to control re-posting when it reaches international boundaries.
The only way to move forward as we correct this issue is to put in place specific refinements to law that have been proposed for judiciary, statutory interpretation & platform policies so that we create a modernized legal perspective. So we can preserve reputations without banning creative expression & ironic comments which are key components to a healthy digital democracy.
-Ashna Ahmad
Prestige Institute of Management & Research
[1] Palak Verma, From Satire to Defamation: Constitutional Limits on Meme Culture in India, JUS CORPUS (2026).
[2] Sanchit Arora, Online Defamation: When Does a Meme Become a Legal Problem? 4 J. Legal Res. & Juridical Sci., no. 4, 2025.
[3] Yajur Joshi, Defamation Laws of India: A Study of Cyber Defamation & Legal Consequences, 6 Indian J. Legal Rev. 635, 635–41 (2026).
[4] Meril Mathew Joy & Shubham Raj, India: Defamation on Social Media- What Can You Do About It? (2020).
[5] Verma, supra note 1.
[6] Amit K. Kashyap & Dr. Takesh Molia, Defamation in Internet Age: Law & Issues in India, 1 IJIEMT 17, at 19 (2016).
[7] Shaili, Defamation in the Digital Age: Navigating Social Media, Blogs, and Legal Consequences, IIPRD (2024).
[8] Arora, supra note 2.
[9] Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, § 356.
[10] Christo Sabu, Defamation in the Digital Era: Not Just Another Form of Libel, 2 Chanakya Law Rev. 104 (2021).
[11] Fesna Fasal, Freedom of Expression and Online Reputation: Examining Digital Defamation and Vloggers Criticism in India, 8 Indian J.L. & Legal Res.
[12] Yajur Joshi, Defamation Laws of India: A Study of Cyber Defamation and Legal Consequences, 6 Indian J. Legal Rev. 635 (2026).
[13] Subramanian Swamy v. Union of India, (2016) 7 S.C.C. 221.
[14] Joshi, supra note 3.
[15] Avnish Bajaj v. State (NCT of Delhi), (2008) 150 D.L.T. 769.
[16] Agarwal, N., & Kaushik, N. (2014). Cyber crimes against women: Gaps in the Information Technology Act. Global Journal of Research in Management (GJRIM), 4(1), 41–46.
[17] Cyber Defamation in India, VINTAGE LEGAL (2021)
[18] Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, (2015) 5 S.C.C. 1.
[19] Sabu, supra note 9.
[20] Google India Pvt. Ltd. v. Visaka Industries Ltd., (2020) 4 S.C.C. 162.
[21] Joshi, supra note 3.
[22] What about the Intermediary? Demystifying the IT Rules, SCCONLINE BLOG (2021).
[23] Swami Ramdev v. Facebook, Inc., (2019) 263 D.L.T. 68.
[24] M. Ashraf & S. Khan, Role and Liability of Intermediaries in Cases of Defamation in Cyberspace (2019).
[25] Shubhank Suman & Kanchan Barna, Memes, Copyright, and Intermediary Liability: What Needs Clarity in India’s Intellectual Property Law, 2 CNLU J. Intell. Prop. & Tech. L. (2025).
[26] Jonathan Zittrain, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It (Yale University Press 2008).
[27] Sabu, supra note 9.
[28] Jack M. Balkin, Digital Speech and Democratic Culture: A Theory of Freedom of Expression for the Information Society, 79 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1 (2004).