Humans of Bombay Row: Outrage against HOB and founder Karishma Mehta as the OG page Humans of New York calls it out

Humans of Bombay (HOB), a storytelling platform, issued a legal notice against People of India (POI), an Instagram based storytelling platform. The former approached the Delhi High Court requesting for an injunction to prevent the latter from sharing or using its content. They went on to highlight that the content shared by POI was similar to what HOB had been highlighting. And, based on the lawsuit, the Delhi High Court summoned POI.

Now here’s the twist in this alleged copyright infringement case. Brandon Stanton, founder of Humans of New York (HONY), the original page that started a global trend, took to social media platform X to say, “I’ve stayed quiet on the appropriation of my work because I think @HumansOfBombay shares important stories, even if they’ve monetized far past anything I’d feel comfortable doing on HONY. But you can’t be suing people for what I’ve forgiven you for.”

I've stayed quiet on the appropriation of my work because I think @HumansOfBombay shares important stories, even if they've monetized far past anything I'd feel comfortable doing on HONY. But you can't be suing people for what I've forgiven you for. https://t.co/0jZM05YyTt

— Brandon Stanton (@humansofny) September 23, 2023

Stanton’s tweet went viral and fuelled the backlash against Karishma Mehta, founder of HOB. Several users were also surprised to learn that the platform is monetised and to the extent it is. Responding to Stanton on X, HOB called his comment as a ‘cryptic assault’ on their efforts to protect their intellectual property, further added that they are all for the ‘power of storytelling’.

pic.twitter.com/JcgZOc8A6g

— Humans Of Bombay (@HumansOfBombay) September 23, 2023

The post also mentioned having initiated an email to continue the conversation with further details provided by Stanton. HOB’s response didn’t go down well as internet users called it out for being arrogant among other things.

HOB was established as a Facebook page in 2014 by Karishma Mehta, a writer and photographer. Over a period, the platform went on to amass a following of 2.7 mn.

HONY has a following of 12.8 mn.