I&B ministry busts six YouTube channels spreading fake news

The fact-check unit of Press Information Bureau (PIB) of the information and broadcasting ministry has busted six YouTube channels which were working in a coordinated manner to spread fake news in India. This is the second such action from the unit under the I&B ministry where entire channels have been busted.

The six YouTube channels were found to be operating as part of a coordinated disinformation network, and had nearly 20 lakh subscribers with their videos having been watched over 51 crore times, the government said on Thursday.

The YouTube channels exposed by the PIB Fact Check unit were spreading fake news about the elections, proceedings in the Supreme Court and Parliament of India, functioning of the Government of India, and so on, the government said. Examples include false claims regarding ban on Electronic Voting Machines, and false statements attributed to senior Constitutional functionaries including the President of India and 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 viewers to believe that the news was authentic and drive traffic to their channels in order to monetize the videos published by them,” the government statement said.

Last month, the fact-check unit of PIB had busted another three YouTube channels which were spreading false information in India. These channels had nearly 33 lakh subscribers and their videos, almost all of which were found to be fake, were watched over 30 crore times.

This is the first time that PIB had taken action against specific YouTube channels as against individual posts on social media spreading false claims. These included channels such as News Headlines, Sarkari Update and Aaj Tak Live.