Another bust on YouTube Channels spreading fake news! I&B Ministry cracks down on six channels that mislead public
The six YouTube Channels are part of a fake news economy that thrives on monetization of fake news who uses clickbait and sensational thumbnails and images of television news anchors of TV Channels to mislead the viewers
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New Delhi, Jan 12: In yet another attack on fake news peddling YouTube channels, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on Thursday busted six YouTube channels that "were working in a coordinated manner and spreading false information in India".
This came after the PIB Fact Check Unit, in a series of tweets, countered the fake news spread by these six channels. This is the second such instance where entire channels have been busted.
According to the PIB Fact Check Unit, "The six YouTube channels were found to be operating as part of a coordinated disinformation network, had nearly 20 lakh subscribers and their videos have been watched over 51 crore times."
A #YouTube channel ‘Nation Tv’ with over 550K subscribers & over 21 crore views has been found to be propagating #FakeNews about the President, Union Ministers & the Election Commission of India.
— PIB Fact Check (@PIBFactCheck) January 12, 2023
#PIBFactCheck found almost all of its content to be fake.
Here’s a thread... pic.twitter.com/GjyJo9xHme
The six channels are - Nation Tv, Samvaad Tv, Sarokar Bharat, Nation 24, Swarnim Bharat and Samvaad Samachar. "The YouTube channels exposed are spreading fake news about the elections, proceedings in the Supreme Court and Parliament of India, functioning of the government.
It also includes false claims regarding the ban on Electronic Voting Machines, and false statements attributed to senior Constitutional functionaries including the President of India as well as the Chief Justice of India.
"The channels are part of a fake news economy that thrives on monetization of fake news. 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 in order to monetize the videos published by them," the Ministry added.