“Given that these type of advocacy ads cud be misintepreted, i hv advised more careful use of Govt logos in these campaigns by private platforms,” Chandrasekhar tweeted.
He was referring to a public interest campaign issued by Google-owned video streaming platform YouTube, depicting a popular social media personality who offers stock market courses. Featuring the logos of the IT ministry and India’s G20 presidency, the body copy stated, “There are real as well as fake experts on the internet. Spotting the difference between the two can be tricky. So, before you trust any self-proclaimed expert, know a little more about them”.
The ad drew questions on whether YouTube and MeitY endorsed “trusted” experts.
This comes at a time when markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has red-flagged unregistered social media influencers for offering financial and investment advice to their followers.
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On May 25, SEBI barred PR Sundar, a financial influencer — or ‘finfluencer’ — from the securities markets for a year for allegedly providing advisory services such as daily stock investment or trading calls without registering with the regulator. Sundar, who has more than a million subscribers on YouTube, was also ordered to disgorge over Rs 6 crore — the amount he earned as fees, along with interest.
Recently, SEBI chairperson Madhabi Puri Buch had also alluded to concerns over the growth in the number of unregistered investment advisors, saying that the markets watchdog was working on regulations to rein in the expanding community. During an event hosted by the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI), when Buch was asked about SEBI’s stance on this issue, she said, “Something is cooking,” but refrained from providing any details.
Earlier this month, Zerodha cofounder Nithin Kamath had said that while investment advisors such as Sundar have been helpful to investors, the expectations they set on market returns is a problem that eventually leads to disappointment.
“They have helped significantly, but the problem is a lot of them also set wrong expectations from the market, and when people come to invest in the market with the wrong expectation, they get disappointed,” Kamath, who is part of three SEBI advisory committees, had said in an interaction with ETNow.
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