The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting blocked 18 Indian and four Pakistan-based YouTube information channels for posting fake information and anti-India content. In a statement, the ministry stated these YouTube channels used logos of TV news channels and false thumbnails to misinform viewers.
The ministry utilised the emergency powers underneath the IT Rules, 2021 and issued orders on April 4,2022 for blocking off of twenty-two YouTube-based information channels, three Twitter accounts, one Facebook account, and one news website.
The blocked YouTube channels had a cumulative viewership of over 260 crore, and had been used to spread fake news, and coordinated disinformation over social media on subjects sensitive from the perspective of country wide security, India’s overseas relations, and public order, the ministry said.
The ministry stated these YouTube channels have been used to submit fake news on quite a number topics such as the Indian Armed Forces, Jammu and Kashmir, as nicely as anti-India content material shared by way of more than one social media bills operated from Pakistan.
“It was once found that a sizable amount of false content material published by means of the these Indian YouTube based channels associated to the ongoing state of affairs in Ukraine, and aimed at jeopardizing India’s foreign members of the family with different countries,” it added.
The ministry stated that the blocked Indian YouTube channels were using templates and logos of certain TV information channels, inclusive of photographs of their news anchors to deceive the viewers to accept as true with that the news used to be authentic.
“False thumbnails had been used; and title and thumbnail of the movies have been regularly altered to amplify the virality of content material on social media. In sure cases, it was also discovered that systematic anti-India fake information was originating from Pakistan,” the ministry stated.
