Press Information Bureau fact check unit exposes six fake YouTube channels
India’s Information and Broadcasting Ministry on Thursday cracked down on six YouTube channels that were found to be spreading fake news to its nearly two million (20 lahks) subscribers. The Fact Check Unit of the Press Information Bureau (PIB) of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting said these six channels were working in a coordinated manner and spreading false information and their videos had over 51 crore views.
Names of Youtube channels found spreading fake news
The YouTube channels were found to be spreading fake news about the elections, proceedings in the Supreme Court and Parliament, and the functioning of the Government, the statement said. The channels are – Nation TV with over 5.57 lakh subscribers, Samvaad TV with 10.9 lakh subscribers, Sarokar Bharat (21,100), Nation24 (25,400), Swarnim Bharat (6,070) and Samvaad Samachaar (3.48 lakh), the statement said.
Change in names as soon as busted
A senior official said that the channels Samvaad Samachar, Samvaad TV, and Nation TV changed their names to Inside India, Inside Bharat, and Nation Weekly respectively, after being “busted” by the Fact Check Unit of PIB. The videos on the channels in question included false claims regarding the ban on electronic voting machines and false statements attributed to senior constitutional functionaries including the President and the Chief Justice of India.
How these channels mislead the viewers
“The channels are part of a fake news economy that thrives on the monetization of fake news,” the statement said. It said that the channels use fake, clickbait, and sensational thumbnails and images of television news anchors of TV channels to mislead the viewers to believe that the news was authentic and drive traffic to their channels to monetize the videos published by them.
This is the second such action by the Fact Check Unit of the PIB. Last month, the unit exposed three channels peddling fake news and wrote to YouTube to take them down.
PIB’s Fact Check Unit tweeted a thread series on the fake news pedaling YouTube channels:
A #YouTube channel ‘Samvaad TV’ with over 10 lakh subscribers was found to be propagating #FakeNews about the Government of India and making false claims about the statements of the Union Ministers. @PIBFactCheck
found almost all of its content to be fake.Here’s a thread👇 pic.twitter.com/MQxsMF7CeI
— PIB Fact Check (@PIBFactCheck) January 12, 2023
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Banning does not lead to anything. Trash & punish those behind the channels who are living in India. Does that require a constitutional amendment ? or a sanction from Judiciary ? Till then executive will keep looking at the wall clock ?
Simple logic.
It’s fake if it carries anything against the Modi Govt.
All bhakts are exempt.
Should catch the originators of the channels and jail them, else they change their name and do the business as usual.