The Centre has taken action against six YouTube channels that were discovered to be disseminating bogus news to their roughly 20 lakh members, according to a statement released on Thursday. These six channels were distributing misleading material in concert, according to the Fact Check Unit of the Press Information Bureau (PIB) of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, and their videos had received over 51 crore views.
“The PIB Fact Check Unit (FCU) of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting busted six YouTube channels which were working in a coordinated manner and spreading false information in India. The Fact Check Unit released six separate Twitter threads having over 100 fact-checks to counter the fake news spread by these channels,” the release said.
The PIB Fact Check unit discovered several YouTube channels that disseminated false information concerning Indian elections, Supreme Court and Parliament proceedings, government operations, and other topics.
According to the statement, the networks include Nation TV, which has over 5.57 lakh subscribers, Samvaad TV, which has 10.9 lakh subscribers, Sarokar Bharat, which has 21,100, Nation24, which has 25,400, Swarnim Bharat, which has 6,070, and Samvaad Samachaar, which has 3,48 lakh.
A top official claimed that after being “busted” by the PIB Fact Check Unit, the networks Samvaad Samachar, Samvaad TV, and Nation TV changed their identities to Inside India, Inside Bharat, and Nation Weekly, respectively.
False comments were made about the legality of electronic voting machines in the videos posted on the aforementioned channels, and the President of India and the Chief Justice of India were falsely quoted as making the statements.
