Centre blocks 6 YouTube channels for peddling fake news

New Delhi, Jan 12: Six YouTube channels engaged in spreading fake news have been blocked by the Centre, a statement from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said on Thursday.

The combined subscribers of six channels stood at 20.47 Lakh and it had over 51 crore views (51,32,96,337), the government said. 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 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 statement said. This is the second such action from the Unit under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting where entire channels have been busted.

The statement claims that 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.

Details of these YouTube channels fact-checked by PIB are as under:

As per the government, the said news channels were spreading fake news about elections, proceedings in the Supreme Court and Parliament of India, functioning of the Government of India, etc. Examples include false claims regarding ban on Electronic Voting Machines, and false statements attributed to senior Constitutional functionaries including President of India Draupadi Murmu and Chief Justice of India Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud.

This is the second such action by PIB Fact Check Unit. In an earlier major action, the Unit had exposed three channels peddling fake news in December, 2022.