By Sushil Kutty
The contrast is like the darkness of last night and the day at 9am this morning. The ugly squat chaos in Delhi and the neat order in the United Arab Emirates. The UAE has a new licensing system for social media influencers and content creators. They have to get business licenses before applying for a media license from the UAE Media Council.
The operative word is “must”. Social media influencers and content creators must get a business license if they are “involved in money-making commercial activities”, says the UAE new media law. There is no such media law governing content creators in India.
Before the new UAE Media Law, all that was needed was a license from the UAE Media Council. Now, social media influencers and content creators have to get a business license first and then only can they apply for the media license from the UAE Media Council. For starters, the Media Council has waived off the fee for three years!
The UAE Media Council set into motion media regulation with the comprehensive Media Regulation Law, effective May 29, 2025. To obtain business licenses before taking media licenses marks a significant shift in UAE’s approach to digital media engagement and operations.
Is there an Indian equivalent? Social media influencers and content creators of India have a field day creating chaos in their domain and, even if there was a media law like the one introduced in the UAE, none of the You-Tube content creators or on other social media platforms would have bothered to follow the law.
Indians are notoriously serious lawbreakers. And white-collar crime is allowed crime! Stealing content is like borrowing money and forgetting it. And there’s a certain innocence in creating content for “views”. Also, loose talk in You-Tube videos isn’t murder!
Talking to the Pakistani enemy even during war! Like the professor of Law in Goa University whose You-Tube channel is stomping ground for “ISI agents” who are invited to Dr. Abhishek Mishra’s You-Tube channel with suspicious frequency.
Dr. Mishra creates a minimum of two You-Tube “reels” per day and the two guests he keeps inviting are a “Major Raza” and a “Ribaha Imran”. Major Raza appears to be “original ISI”, and Ribaha is one of the 20-odd Pakistani You-Tube content creators who went missing and returned after a “software-update” in the days before Pak Army Chief Gen. Asim Munir went dolts over Hindu-Muslim in Islamabad.
Ribaha Imran’s You-Tube channel was one among several Pakistani You-Tube channels @MIB “banned/blocked”. But who cares, India doesn’t have a media law like the one the UAE has adopted. UAE’s content creators will adapt to the new UAE media law, but India doesn’t have any media law to control and keep tabs on content creators and social media influencers.
Content creators like Dr. Abhishek Mishra and Rohit Sharma, another frequent visitor to the Ribaha Imran You-Tube channel, which always features Major Raza, who is always in a talkative frame of mind, asking questions and seeking answers from Abhishek Mishra and Rohit Sharma.
Another of their Pakistani “contacts” on You-Tube is the famous-infamous Arzoo Kazmi, whose You-Tube channel, too, was banned/blocked by the @MIB but who remains a welcome “guest” in India’s mainstream TV news channels, both Hindi and English. Somebody asked why’s the Pakistani military establishment so lenient with Kazmi?
For the simple reason that Kazmi has the ISI’s trust. This Pakistani femme-fatale blabbers against the ISI, against the Pakistan Army and against the toothless Pakistani civil authorities, and she’s one of the exceptionally “bold and beautiful Pakistanis”, Indians love, a “completely secular person”.
Arzoo Kazmi’s “profile” is ISI-made with titbits like she hails from an age-old Prayagraj family! Like she’s dying to visit Prayagraj where her grandfather used to be a high court judge in pre-Independence India. Arzoo Kazmi’s grey-green eyes tell the lie, the idols of Buddha she displays behind her tell the lie, the “Bindi” she sports tells her lie.
Kazmi used to be “human rights activist” till before “Pahalgam” happened, now she’s “journalist/human rights activist”. Kazmi is no journalist but Kazmi has tasted some of Dr Abhishek Mishra’s honey-funny talk. Kazmi, Abhishek and Rohit Sharma get along like a house of fire. If only Abhishek was an Adonis!
But Abhishek makes up for Adonis with genius. Arzoo Kazmi thinks Mishra is genius. Ribaha Imran thinks Mishra is genius. So do Nimra Ahmed and Anam Sheik, two more Pakistani You-Tube content creators invited again and again to Abhishek’s You-Tube channel.
Does the UAE keep tabs on Indian laws governing content creators and social media influencers? Where is the Indian media law to put a leash on content creators and social media influencers? What would it take to stop content creators and social media influencers from using social media to help India’s enemies with vital and sensitive info?
India’s content creators and social media influencers keep breaking laws. All the Pakistani You-Tubers banned/blocked by @MIB are back onboard creating content focusing on ‘Operation Sindoor’ and ‘Indus Water Treaty’. There is no law to protect India from these social media predators.
The UAE hasn’t missed a thing. There’s more to the UAE’s new media law. It has been designed to protect the integrity of the UAE. It will not allow anybody to break UAE laws. A penalty of Dirham 1 million awaits those who violate UAE’s new media law. The difference between a serious country and a loose lackadaisical country.
Funny thing is the expat community in the UAE is majority Indian and the expat Indian who works and lives in the UAE is the most disciplined and law-abiding resident of UAE. It is only in India that Indians give rule of law a miss.
In the UAE, content creation is a business with conditions attached. In India, anything goes and no questions asked. It is like the government planned it! It is like Delhi after a bulldozer visit. The rubble, the debris, the tears! For decades, the law was broken and now the anguished call: “Why were our parents and grandparents allowed to encroach, 50-60 years ago?”
India needs better, closer and tighter monitoring of content creators and social media influencers right now, not after ‘Operation Sindoor’ is won or lost. The media war out there can make all the difference. (IPA Service)
