With the Delhi High Court gagging Facebook from publishing any anonymous allegations on Instagram against artist Subodh Gupta and asking the US-based company to reveal the identity of those behind the Instagram account @herdsceneand, senior lawyer Sujay Kantawala explains what their respective options are.

What protection do the Instagram account runners who aired the accusers' allegations against Subodh Gupta have?
As on date, there is no specific provision in law that stipulates statutory safeguards in relation to the 'rights' or 'protection' of these platforms that air the grievances of victims. The general view is that the same customary (not legally codified) principles that apply to the protection of a journalist's sources apply in this context as well. This is primarily because the offence of defamation (which is the most frequently cited offence in such cases) puts an emphasis on 'publication' and publication is agnostic to whether one is a journalist or an internet platform. The test is whether defamatory content has been published by the entity in question.