How cybercriminals are exploiting a Meta copyright loophole to extort digital content creators

6 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Jul 18, 2026 02:35 PM IST

Frustrated by Meta’s automated grievance redressal systems, which the creators allege offer only templated responses without meaningful human review, the creators moved the Delhi High Court. (Express)

For digital content creators, a social media account is more than just an online profile; it is a business asset and a source of livelihood. However, a loophole in Meta’s copyright infringement policy is allowing bad-faith actors to threaten to get these accounts suspended and hold creators to ransom, several prominent digital content creators who approached the Delhi High Court in the last three weeks have alleged.

Scale of attack

The pleadings paint a harrowing picture, with many creators allegedly losing access to millions of followers overnight due to their accounts being suspended after multiple copyright strikes.

Pushkar Raj Thakur, a prominent financial educator with 2.8 million Instagram followers and over 15 million YouTube subscribers, was among the first to move the court. According to his plaint, cybercriminals targeted 36 of his original videos with fraudulent copyright strikes.

Neeraj Joshi, a financial educator with a combined social media following of 7.5 million subscribers, saw his verified Instagram account with 3.68 lakh followers permanently deactivated on April 21, 2026. This followed a barrage of automated copyright strikes against his own original videos.

Mohammed Nawaz Shaikh, an Artificial Intelligence educator with 1.6 million Instagram followers, stated in his plaint that he was hit with 36 copyright strikes across April and May 2026, leading to his account being suspended in June.

The issue extends beyond individual grievances, as flagged in a public interest litigation (PIL) by Nitin Joshi, a business and markets content creator with 1.6 million followers on Instagram. After noticing this systemic abuse, he published a video about the purported scam, but the video was blocked the next morning due to the same fraudulent copyright mechanism. His PIL compiles data from 40 creators, revealing a widespread extortion racket.

According to his petition, his own account had been suspended due to fraudulent copyright complaints.

Weaponising the ‘edit post’ feature

Story continues below this ad

According to the pleadings, the scammers exploit a specific vulnerability in Facebook’s desktop version to manipulate timestamps.

First, the bad-faith actors upload arbitrary or unrelated material on Facebook pages with little to no engagement or followers. When a legitimate creator uploads a new, original reel on Instagram, the scammers immediately download it. They then use the “Edit Post” functionality on their older Facebook posts to replace the original media with the creator’s newly uploaded video.

Having replaced the video, the altered post continues to reflect the old publication date, creating the appearance of prior publication and ownership.

Using this backdated post, the scammers invoke Meta’s “Rights Manager”, a copyright enforcement tool designed to protect intellectual property. The automated system, tricked by the older timestamp, assumes the scammer is the original creator and issues a copyright strike against the actual author’s Instagram account. Meta’s policy dictates that an accumulation of such strikes leads to automatic account suspension.

Extortion playbook

Story continues below this ad

The automated strikes are followed by attempts at extortion, the pleadings allege.

In Neeraj Joshi’s case, a scammer allegedly messaged him, “I have removed and blocked many of your videos. If you Give me money, I will restore all the videos.

Shaikh’s plaint alleges that someone using the alias “Target lock”—who had filed three copyright strikes against him—messaged him: “If you want the strikes removed, contact us as soon as possible.”

Faced with the permanent deletion of his account, Shaikh paid this person Rs 55,000 across multiple UPI accounts. Immediately afterwards, the scammers submitted copyright retraction forms, and Meta restored his content. However, weeks later, a second wave of fabricated strikes hit his profile, leading to a fresh suspension on June 28, 2026 and demands for another Rs 60,000, which he reluctantly paid.

Story continues below this ad

Nitin Joshi’s petition highlights multiple such examples. CA Bhagyashree Thakkar, for instance, a creator with 891,000 followers, was told by a scammer, “I need money if you don’t pay i remove your Instagram permanently.” Another creator, Pranav Borude, reportedly paid an aggregate of Rs 2 lakh to a scammer claiming to be from Bangladesh.

Approaching the High Court

Frustrated by Meta’s automated grievance redressal systems – which the creators allege offer only templated responses without meaningful human review – the creators moved the Delhi High Court.

In their suits, Thakur, Neeraj Joshi and Shaikh are seeking mandatory injunctions — court orders compelling a party to perform a specific act — to direct Meta to restore their wrongfully deactivated accounts. They have also demanded damages upwards of Rs 2 crore each for the loss of commercial goodwill, brand collaborations and mental harassment.

Meanwhile, Nitin Joshi’s PIL seeks the constitution of a special investigation team to probe the extortion racket. It also challenges the constitutional validity of provisions of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, that allow an intermediary platform to disable a user’s account without prior notice, arguing that this violates the legal principle of the right to a fair hearing and infringes upon the fundamental right to earn a livelihood.

Story continues below this ad

The Delhi High Court has heard three of these matters. In Thakur’s suit, Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani recorded Meta’s assurance that Thakur’s videos would not be taken down on copyright grounds until the next hearing and that his account would not be closed due to these repeated strikes. Similarly, in Neeraj Joshi’s case, Justice Jyoti Singh recorded Meta’s statement that it would carry out a necessary investigation into the allegations and preserve his verified account.