IB Ministry exposes six YouTube channels for spreading fake news
New Delhi, January 12: Information and Broadcasting Ministry (I&B) exposed six YouTube channels on Thursday for "working in a coordinated manner and spreading false information" about the government, elections, Supreme Court and Parliament of India proceedings, the president and prime minister.
Centre identified three fake news channels in December. The Press Information Bureau's Fact Check Unit issued an official statement pointing to six YouTube channels — Nation TV, Samvaad TV, Sarokar Bharat, Nation 24, Swarnim Bharat, and Samvaad Samachar — that were using fake, clickbait, and sensational thumbnails and images of television news anchors to mislead viewers into believing that the news shared by them was authentic.
According to the I&B ministry's official release, these YouTube channels are part of a fake news economy that thrives on the monetization of fake news.
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As per the release, these channels have 20 lakh subscribers and their videos have been viewed over 51 crore times.
To counter the fake news spread by these channels, the PIb's Fact Check Unit released six separate Twitter threads with over 100 fact-checks. This is the second such action by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting's Unit, in which entire channels have been shut down.
The nodal agency's fact-checking team communicates with the media on behalf of the Government of India. It identifies fake news on social media and the channels associated with it in order to warn people not to believe it.
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- ANI
