During the weekend, comedian Tanmay Bhat released a Snapchat video in which he presented a conversation between Sachin Tendulkar and Lata Mangeshkar using the application’s face swap feature. Depending on your comic sensibilities, you either found it funny or you thought it was meh. But since it involved popular celebrities being treated with irreverence, it naturally offended a large number of jobless people. Once it started trending on twitter, our vast outrage industry revved up its engines and went into Def Con 4.

While all the news channels were covering the issue to some degree, News X was all Tanmay, all day long. It was where everyone was going to express their anger and outrage. If you had a beef with All India Bakchod or any other comedian in the country, that was where you went to vent. People were crawling out of the woodwork to give their comments. Although, those feigning outrage on the channel looked less like “celebrities” and more like “retirees enjoying a morning walk.” Before their primetime news broadcast, News X was airing phone calls from their viewers. Actually, they were trying to, but they kept facing technical difficulties, which is a great metaphor for their channel.

During their flagship prime-time show, the anchor, an impoverished Rahul Shivshanker, went on a rant about malevolent forces misusing their platform to misinform a section of people. Big words from a man whose own channel had spent the better part of the day pretending that a sarcastic tweet was a true fact.

Meanwhile, on India Today, Rajdeep was put on his “I am so surprised” face as the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena and Bharatiya Janata Party spokesmen were bragging about filing first information reports against the comedian. The MNS spokesperson even threatened to provide MNS-style justice, in case the law didn’t take whatever course they wanted it to take. Sardesai was shocked – shocked! – that a member of a political party in Maharashtra was openly inciting violence in response to some perceived insult to Manoos pride.

Of course, as always, the main event of the day was on Times Now. Arnab Goswami went into the discussion with 11 panelists, offering us a smorgasbord of crazy to choose from. Even Vinod Kambli managed to temporally escape whatever undisclosed location Sachin Tendulkar keeps him in to let Goswami yell things at him. Kambli managed to let us know how sporting he was by constantly shouting at anyone on the panel who dared invoke his name.

The panel also had Rakesh Bedi, who was mostly there just so Goswami had someone to flirt with. When Bediand Goswami were not dreamily looking into each other’s eyes, Bedi did not lose any opportunity to let us know he didn’t find the video funny. Not funny at all. No siree bob. He didn’t even crack a smile! How can anyone be funny if they can’t make Rakesh Bedi smile? He’ll laugh at anything! Hey Rakesh, if I cared about the opinion of a guy who was funny for a couple of times in the ’90s, I would have followed Anupam Kher on Twitter.

Former cricketer Saad Bin Jung loudly informed us how the video in question threatened the integrity of the country. Yes, a nation of a billion people will simply self-destruct if a person is allowed to post short comedy videos on an app that is mostly used by teenagers to send each other nudez. Of course, he wasn’t the most unhinged person on the panel. That title was reserved for social activist Abha Singh who kept yelling about the AIB roast that apparently threatened the modesty of every woman in the country. Raju Srivastav was also there, in case anyone wanted the take of an unfunny homophobic misogynist on the whole fracas!

A few professional comedians were also on the show to explain their side. They thought using logic and talking in your inside voice on Times Newshour was the best way to win the debate! It’s like going to a sword fight being armed with a Swiss knife. By the time the show ended, their expression resembled that of the guy from Clockwork Orange.

What we saw yesterday was a crass display of national shamelessness. Political parties who were tripping over each other to capitalize on the outrage were accusing other people of seeking publicity. News channels that are craven and desperate enough to edit videos to make it look like people are saying something outrageous, were trying to occupy high moral ground. The most thin-skinned and humourless people in the world were telling us what ‘real comedy’ really is.

The question in front of us wasn’t about the content of the video. It doesn’t matter whether you find something funny or not. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t tickle your funny bones or make you smile. It doesn’t matter if you thought it was crass. It doesn’t matter that you cannot sit with your grandmother to watch it. It still has a right to exist.

You can’t censor someone because your delicate sensibilities are offended. Everyone in this country seems to have a line in the sand when it comes to free speech. People have internalised the myth that if something crosses their personal line of acceptance, then other people have to adhere to it too. Free speech isn’t one of those things that can exist in parts. You either have absolute free speech, or you don’t. Because when one person is allowed to enforce their own sensibilities, you cannot stop the next person from doing so.

There’s something poetic about the fact that the debates last night were inspired by a Snapchat video — a medium whose key selling point is that the content self-destructs and becomes out-of-sight-out-of-mind within five minutes to 24 hours (depending upon whether the message is private or public). We’ll be lucky if any of what was “debated” on primetime lasts as long in public memory as a Snapchat video.

The author can be contacted on Twitter @over_rated