SEBI has removed over 1.2 lakh misleading social media posts by unregistered financial influencers, Chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey said. He added that only SEBI-registered entities can offer investment advice. The regulator is using its AI tool ‘Sudarshan’ to track violations across audio, video and multilingual content.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has removed more than 1.2 lakh misleading social media posts by unregistered financial influencers and is leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) tools to track violations in the digital space, Chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey said.

Speaking to ANI, Pandey said, "We have removed more than 120,000 such pieces of content from social media where we found egregious behaviour violating our norms."

He reiterated that SEBI regulations clearly mandate that investment advice can only be given by registered entities.

"Our rules say that if you have to give investment advice, you have to be registered with SEBI. And being registered means you have certain do's and don'ts," he stated.

While acknowledging freedom of expression and the right to undertake financial education, the SEBI chief drew a clear distinction between education and misleading advice. "People have every right to express themselves and undertake financial education as part of their fundamental right to freedom of expression. Only when you transgress that line and actually mislead investors do we step in, seek removal, and have the content taken down," he said.

Pandey said SEBI has the authority to direct the removal of such content and that social media platforms are cooperating. "We have the power to order removal, and the platforms cooperate with us," he stated.

To strengthen surveillance, SEBI has deployed an in-house AI tool. "We are armed with our own AI tool called 'Sudarshan,' through which we are able to track, on a multilingual basis, audio, video, and other content to pinpoint where transgressions occur," he said.

On the broader issue of retail participation in derivatives markets, Pandey flagged the influence of social media narratives post-COVID. Referring to options trading, he said many retail investors were "much influenced by influencers post-COVID, possibly by misleading claims that there's a lot of money to be made in these."

SEBI, he said, responded with data-backed measures and investor warnings. "Our data showed, and we made it public, that collectively there were substantial losses. We also introduced a statutory warning, like those on cigarettes, stating that whenever you trade in options, 9 out of 10 investors lose money. That's the warning we are giving you. A pop-up message will appear," he added.

Calling market regulation a calibrated exercise, Pandey underlined that SEBI's approach is not heavy-handed. "Market development is not about a sledgehammer approach but more like a surgeon's knife - identifying problem areas and dealing with them," he said.

The SEBI Chairman described the past year as "a year of reform," asserting that the regulator remains focused on achieving optimum regulation - neither over-regulating the market nor under-regulating it. (ANI)