Social media influencer Preetipls revealed that her Instagram post, alleging “abuse of power” by radio DJ Dee Kosh, had been removed by the platform for “hate speech”.
On Friday (21 Aug), Preetipls, whose real name is Preeti Nair, tweeted a screenshot of Instagram removing her post.
lol so my post about deekosh’s threats and bullying got removed for hate speech. cc: @instagram pic.twitter.com/s6NlL3fuJF
— prEEtipls (@plspreeti) August 20, 2020
The official reason stated was the post “goes against community guidelines for hate speech and symbols”
At time of writing, the post has not been re-uploaded.
However, the accusations against Kosh is still up on her Facebook page which she uploaded on Wednesday (19 Aug).
When her post was removed, Preeti then questioned why Instagram had not previously removed Xiaxue’s post where she allegedly “body-shamed” her.
Preetipls accuses Dee Kosh of abusing his power to intimidate her and her brother Subhas Nair
Preeti accused the DJ on Wednesday (19 Aug) of intimidating her and her brother Subhas Nair in an incident two years ago.
She alleged that Mr Kosh’s alleged abuse of power against her and Mr Subhas took place in December 2018 after Mr Subhas criticised a video made by Mr Kosh.
“It is him singing an “Indian version” of an English song and by that I mean yet again making a mockery of the Indian accent in the name of bad comedy,” she wrote.
Mr Subhas, in an Instagram story, said that Mr Kosh’s video was “not funny” and questioned why the latter continues to pander to “Chinese people” using “racist caricatures”.
“Do you just want to lend your voice and platform to verbalize the shit they cannot say? Do you hate your Indian-ness that much? You can do better,” he added, referring to Mr Kosh’s Malayalee ancestry. Mr Kosh is of Chinese-Indian parentage.
Highlighting that Mr Subhas’ remarks were not in any way related to her, Ms Preeti said that Mr Kosh had then posted an Instagram story with a picture of them together “as an indirect retort insinuating that my brother having an opinion would lead to the tarnishing of my career”.
“Subhas took to Instagram again to let DK know that I should not be dragged into this and also to reiterate his initial thoughts on video #1,” she added.
Ms Preeti said that she had also communicated to Mr Kosh her discomfort with the situation through a WhatsApp conversation.
In a screenshot of the conversation posted by Ms Preeti, Mr Kosh can purportedly be seen threatening to “destroy” Mr Subhas and that Ms Preeti will “sadly” become “collateral damage if that happens”.
He had also allegedly said that he was only willing to take down the Instagram story with a photograph of Ms Preeti for her “alone”.
“If this was not an abuse of power I’m not sure what is. and remember, this is all because my brother thought his stupid video was done in bad taste,” said Ms Preeti.
She alleged that from the point of the incident onwards, Mr Kosh “has gone the extra mile” to mention her and Mr Subhas in an attempt to destroy their careers.
“It has almost been 2 years since this incident and even up til today he continues to take potshots against me. He even launched his podcast with the debut episode attacking me and IRONICALLY using Eden Ang as clickbait for streams.
“Remember his 4 part video series about the brown face incident? Well take a look at the hypocrite’s portrayal of Indian and Muslim women in his own content. This man is vile and disgusting and has been a bully for way too long,” said Ms Preeti.
Police investigating multiple police reports filed against Dee Koh over alleged sexual harassment
Police confirmed last week that they are investigating Mr Kosh after several police reports were lodged against him for alleged sexual harassment of teenage boys.
Several of the alleged victims shared screenshots on social media over the weekend, in which Mr Kosh could be seen asking them for nude photographs and sexual favours.
Mr Kosh, whose real name is Darryl Ian Koshy, said on Saturday that he would be “taking the necessary steps to clear this all up”.
However, a few days later, Mr Kosh shared a post on his social media accounts, admitting that “there is truth to some of the things which are being said now”.
Despite that, he maintained that some of the allegations baffled him “because they were baseless and untrue”.
“(E)ven though I had put out on an earlier statement on Instastories denying allegations which had surfaced initially, I now admit that there is truth to some of the things which are being said now, and I am sorry to the people I have hurt in the process,” Mr Kosh said.
He also mentioned the circulated screenshot of him texting with a 15-year-old boy that he now accepts is “problematic”.
“My tone was questionable, but there was absolutely no intent to groom him,” he clarified, adding that he “did not ever have any sexual relations with him or any minor”.
The YouTuber, who has more than 380k subscribers on his channel, also rebutted the allegations of him looking for paid sex on dating apps and using his talent management business “as a platform for anything else apart from working with all our clients for content creation and entertainment”.
Alleged victims speak out
The first accusation emerged online when an Instagram user @_epaul shared a post on Saturday (15 Aug) claiming Mr Kosh had sexually harassed him under the “guise of recruiting me for his channel and tried to cover his dirty tracks”.
The post, however, has been removed from his account.
The next day, @_epaul uploaded a lawyer’s letter from DC Law firm which demanded him to “immediately cease and desist” from publishing the offending content about Mr Kosh.
Following his disclosure, several people also stepped forward on social media to share their similar encounters, some of whom had shown screenshots of text conversations between them and Mr Kosh.
The screenshots, shared by another Instagram user @sxmuel.l, showed that a Telegram user with the name ‘deekosh’ offered “1k” and asked @sxmuel.l to come over his house without giving a specific reason for doing so.
A Twitter user @DisparateFool recounted his experience of being harassed by Mr Kosh, while expressing that he felt disturbing on how persistent and manipulative of Dee Kosh in emphasising “how the arrangement must involve sex”.
More recently, author Eliza Teoh also took to her Facebook page yesterday to denounce Mr Kosh’s “verbal harassment” against her and influencer Nicole Choo several years ago.
According to Ms Teoh, Mr Kosh had posted a video online, mocking Ms Choo’s work and looks, after Ms Choo’s book “Nineteen” made it to The Straits Times’ Bestselling List.
“The whole horrible saga started with him posting a YouTube video reading out her work and mocking her looks, her work, degrading her as a person.
“Nicole was only 19 then. He was 30. To this day, I don’t know why he, together with another grown man called Hirzi [a Singaporean comedian and YouTube personality of MunahHirzi fame], would dress up as women and mock a teenage girl, using sexual slurs, just for having the audacity to launch a book,” she wrote.
Initially, Ms Teoh assumed that it was triggered “by the fact that Nicole had achieved some level of success which they felt was not deserved”.
However, she later found out that Dee Kosh “had been obsessively mocking her since she was 15”.
Expressing her thoughts on this saga, she noted: “Whether the accusations are true, only time will tell. All I can say now is that there is a clear pattern of his predatory behaviour towards young girls and boys.”
Lawyer no longer representing Dee Kosh; Dee Kosh on leave from work
Responding to the letter sent to the alleged victim, lawyer Fong Wei Li said he was “unable to comment because we no longer act for Dee Kosh,” as reported in Yahoo News.
The radio station, Power 98 FM – where Mr Kosh works as a part-time DJ – also issued a statement on Monday, noting that he is currently on leave” and that the radio station “does not tolerate any form of harassment”.