Monetisation wrestles with moderation in livestream grey zones
“Gift me Valentine’s special Ferrari, friends,” Pooja* tells the people watching her livestream as Hindi songs play in the background. Dressed up, often wearing a mask to conceal her identity, she streams for three to four hours in the morning and again late at night on Tango.
She is asking for a virtual gift. Users can purchase this virtual Ferrari for Rs 10,999 on the app, which translates to 9,999 in-app coins. These coins are credited to the creator's account and can later be converted into cash, subject to the platform’s commissions.
Hundreds of women, many of them from tier-2 and tier-3 cities, have joined similar platforms, drawn by low entry barriers, flexible work hours and scope of earning.
Several platforms similar to Omegle, which allowed users to connect with strangers over voice or video, have gained scale in recent years, particularly in smaller Indian cities, thanks to lighter moderation frameworks. These include Tango Live Stream, Ayar, Dova Match, Yaki Video Meet, Joyo Lite, Hamet Chat & Meeting and Omar Video Chat.
Omegle was shut down in 2023 following multiple abuse-related complaints.
Tango Live Stream has crossed 500 million downloads as of this month, according to Google Play Store data. Ayar and Dova Match have recorded downloads ranging from one million to several millions, indicating significant adoption despite limited visibility in mainstream social media discourse.
An ET analysis of more than 100 live streams across YouTube, Instagram and seven video chat applications over the past four weeks found a consistent pattern: creators typically begin with general entertainment content such as music, dance or casual conversation before transitioning into sessions featuring sexually suggestive dialogue, repeated monetisation prompts and offers of private interaction.
While such formats are most visible on smaller apps, similar content is increasingly surfacing on mainstream social platforms as well.
“Global giants such as YouTube, Instagram and Tango Live, along with early iterations of Netflix and Disney+ Hotstar, historically operated with much lighter content controls...often hosting provocative material that fuelled their initial growth,” said Madhukar Sinha, cofounder and general partner at venture capital firm IndiaQuotient. “Similarly, apps like TikTok and several Chinese platforms scale up rapidly by allowing users to push boundaries further than local players are permitted.”
Domestic platforms such as Ullu and ALTBalaji have faced sustained regulatory scrutiny over their content, while global platforms have often operated under different enforcement conditions, Sinha said.
According to YouTube, it removed a video flagged by ET and terminated the channel for violating its nudity and sexual content policy. The platform said its community guidelines apply across formats including livestreams, video descriptions, thumbnails and comments and prohibit nudity, non-consensual sexual acts, unwanted sexualisation and the distribution of non-consensual sexual imagery.
Meta also has community guidelines in place for Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Threads, which is also applicable to live streaming, the platform said while responding to ET's queries.
Tango did not respond to ET's queries. Contact information for platforms such as Ayar and Dova Match was not available.
Larger players, bigger base
Creators are increasingly learning to navigate grey areas even on mainstream platforms— tailoring content to remain policy-compliant while continuing to monetise suggestive engagement.
On a recent YouTube livestream, a creator named Priya* urged viewers to increase payments, saying: “Rs 40 super chat se kya hoga? Main toh keh rahi hoon, Rs 100 karenge toh ek maheene ka membership mil sakta hai. Nahi toh Rs 150 ka membership kar lijiye. (“What will happen with a Rs 40 super chat? I’m saying, if you make it Rs 100, you could get a one-month membership. Otherwise, you can take the Rs 150 membership.)”
ET observed similar language across dozens of livestreams, where higher-value payments were positioned as gateways to extended interaction or exclusive access, without explicitly spelling out the benefits.
Transactions on several of these platforms are structured around quick response (QR) codes linked to creators’ UPI accounts, allowing payments to flow directly into personal bank accounts.
On monetised interactions such as Super Chats and Super Stickers, YouTube said users must comply with community guidelines when sending paid messages. Also, inappropriate Super Chats can be flagged by viewers or creators, and if held automatically by detection systems or moderation tools, the transaction is prevented from completing. If a paid message is later found to violate policy, YouTube’s share of the transaction is donated to charity, the company said.
Who creates and who engages
A majority of creators running such livestreams were women, many appearing to operate from smaller cities, while viewer engagement was driven largely by male audiences.
“We are seeing that tools designed for creativity and visibility are developing a darker side,” said Pratishtha Arora, cofounder and chief executive of Social and Media Matters, a digital rights organisation working with young internet users.
She added that women and marginalised communities face disproportionate exposure, as sexually loaded slang and insinuations frequently slip through moderation systems designed to flag explicit violations rather than contextual harm. In several cases, reported content remains online because it does not formally breach community standards.
At the same time, several female creators on these platforms, who see live streaming as a viable source of income, have begun publicly pushing back against demeaning comments and harassment during live sessions.
“Sometimes men misbehave and ask me to do dirty things but I can block them,” said Ruchika*, a woman in her twenties. She joined Tango a few months back after friends recommended it as a good source of income.
She lives with her parents and does this without their knowledge. “I get good money here through live streaming and chatting. I cash out whenever I want to.”
Another woman said she sometimes earns more than Rs 5,000 a day if her viewers are “generous”. Some of them talk to over 30 people daily.
Digital rights groups say the gap between explicit violations and implied content continues to pose legal and enforcement challenges.
“From a legal standpoint, obscenity is prohibited under the IT Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita,” said Apar Gupta, founder of the Internet Freedom Foundation. “Liability generally rests with the creator, not the platform, unless the platform has actual knowledge and fails to act.”
While platforms are required to remove sexually explicit material on receipt of lawful complaints, content that relies on implication rather than explicit imagery often remains outside enforcement scope, Gupta said.
Age verification remains another unresolved issue. While platforms offer age-based settings and content filters, enforcement is limited, particularly on apps that lack resources for large-scale moderation, experts said.
“These video chat and live streaming apps fail in content moderation because they don’t invest heavily in that space,” said Amitabh Kumar, founder of Contrails AI, a Bengaluru-based AI cybersecurity firm.
He added that penalties for privacy and content violations were relatively low before the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, limiting their deterrent effect for both large platforms and smaller players.
YouTube said it has a dedicated YouTube Kids app and supervised accounts for younger users. In 2025, it announced plans to deploy machine learning tools to estimate user age more accurately and distinguish between minors and adults in order to provide age-appropriate experiences and protections.
*Name changed to protect identity.
She is asking for a virtual gift. Users can purchase this virtual Ferrari for Rs 10,999 on the app, which translates to 9,999 in-app coins. These coins are credited to the creator's account and can later be converted into cash, subject to the platform’s commissions.
Hundreds of women, many of them from tier-2 and tier-3 cities, have joined similar platforms, drawn by low entry barriers, flexible work hours and scope of earning.
Several platforms similar to Omegle, which allowed users to connect with strangers over voice or video, have gained scale in recent years, particularly in smaller Indian cities, thanks to lighter moderation frameworks. These include Tango Live Stream, Ayar, Dova Match, Yaki Video Meet, Joyo Lite, Hamet Chat & Meeting and Omar Video Chat.
Omegle was shut down in 2023 following multiple abuse-related complaints.
Tango Live Stream has crossed 500 million downloads as of this month, according to Google Play Store data. Ayar and Dova Match have recorded downloads ranging from one million to several millions, indicating significant adoption despite limited visibility in mainstream social media discourse.
An ET analysis of more than 100 live streams across YouTube, Instagram and seven video chat applications over the past four weeks found a consistent pattern: creators typically begin with general entertainment content such as music, dance or casual conversation before transitioning into sessions featuring sexually suggestive dialogue, repeated monetisation prompts and offers of private interaction.
While such formats are most visible on smaller apps, similar content is increasingly surfacing on mainstream social platforms as well.
“Global giants such as YouTube, Instagram and Tango Live, along with early iterations of Netflix and Disney+ Hotstar, historically operated with much lighter content controls...often hosting provocative material that fuelled their initial growth,” said Madhukar Sinha, cofounder and general partner at venture capital firm IndiaQuotient. “Similarly, apps like TikTok and several Chinese platforms scale up rapidly by allowing users to push boundaries further than local players are permitted.”
Domestic platforms such as Ullu and ALTBalaji have faced sustained regulatory scrutiny over their content, while global platforms have often operated under different enforcement conditions, Sinha said.
According to YouTube, it removed a video flagged by ET and terminated the channel for violating its nudity and sexual content policy. The platform said its community guidelines apply across formats including livestreams, video descriptions, thumbnails and comments and prohibit nudity, non-consensual sexual acts, unwanted sexualisation and the distribution of non-consensual sexual imagery.
Meta also has community guidelines in place for Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Threads, which is also applicable to live streaming, the platform said while responding to ET's queries.
Tango did not respond to ET's queries. Contact information for platforms such as Ayar and Dova Match was not available.
Larger players, bigger base
Creators are increasingly learning to navigate grey areas even on mainstream platforms— tailoring content to remain policy-compliant while continuing to monetise suggestive engagement.
On a recent YouTube livestream, a creator named Priya* urged viewers to increase payments, saying: “Rs 40 super chat se kya hoga? Main toh keh rahi hoon, Rs 100 karenge toh ek maheene ka membership mil sakta hai. Nahi toh Rs 150 ka membership kar lijiye. (“What will happen with a Rs 40 super chat? I’m saying, if you make it Rs 100, you could get a one-month membership. Otherwise, you can take the Rs 150 membership.)”
ET observed similar language across dozens of livestreams, where higher-value payments were positioned as gateways to extended interaction or exclusive access, without explicitly spelling out the benefits.
Transactions on several of these platforms are structured around quick response (QR) codes linked to creators’ UPI accounts, allowing payments to flow directly into personal bank accounts.
On monetised interactions such as Super Chats and Super Stickers, YouTube said users must comply with community guidelines when sending paid messages. Also, inappropriate Super Chats can be flagged by viewers or creators, and if held automatically by detection systems or moderation tools, the transaction is prevented from completing. If a paid message is later found to violate policy, YouTube’s share of the transaction is donated to charity, the company said.
Who creates and who engages
A majority of creators running such livestreams were women, many appearing to operate from smaller cities, while viewer engagement was driven largely by male audiences.
“We are seeing that tools designed for creativity and visibility are developing a darker side,” said Pratishtha Arora, cofounder and chief executive of Social and Media Matters, a digital rights organisation working with young internet users.
She added that women and marginalised communities face disproportionate exposure, as sexually loaded slang and insinuations frequently slip through moderation systems designed to flag explicit violations rather than contextual harm. In several cases, reported content remains online because it does not formally breach community standards.
At the same time, several female creators on these platforms, who see live streaming as a viable source of income, have begun publicly pushing back against demeaning comments and harassment during live sessions.
“Sometimes men misbehave and ask me to do dirty things but I can block them,” said Ruchika*, a woman in her twenties. She joined Tango a few months back after friends recommended it as a good source of income.
She lives with her parents and does this without their knowledge. “I get good money here through live streaming and chatting. I cash out whenever I want to.”
Another woman said she sometimes earns more than Rs 5,000 a day if her viewers are “generous”. Some of them talk to over 30 people daily.
Digital rights groups say the gap between explicit violations and implied content continues to pose legal and enforcement challenges.
“From a legal standpoint, obscenity is prohibited under the IT Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita,” said Apar Gupta, founder of the Internet Freedom Foundation. “Liability generally rests with the creator, not the platform, unless the platform has actual knowledge and fails to act.”
While platforms are required to remove sexually explicit material on receipt of lawful complaints, content that relies on implication rather than explicit imagery often remains outside enforcement scope, Gupta said.
Age verification remains another unresolved issue. While platforms offer age-based settings and content filters, enforcement is limited, particularly on apps that lack resources for large-scale moderation, experts said.
“These video chat and live streaming apps fail in content moderation because they don’t invest heavily in that space,” said Amitabh Kumar, founder of Contrails AI, a Bengaluru-based AI cybersecurity firm.
He added that penalties for privacy and content violations were relatively low before the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, limiting their deterrent effect for both large platforms and smaller players.
YouTube said it has a dedicated YouTube Kids app and supervised accounts for younger users. In 2025, it announced plans to deploy machine learning tools to estimate user age more accurately and distinguish between minors and adults in order to provide age-appropriate experiences and protections.
*Name changed to protect identity.
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