3 YouTube Channels With 33 Lakh Subscribers Busted In Fake News Crackdown

Three YouTube channels with a total of 33 lakh subscribers have been busted for spreading fake news about Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud and key institutions, the centre said today.

The YouTube channels are News Headlines, Sarkari Update and Aaj Tak Live.

A government statement said that the probe against these three channels was conducted by the fact-check unit of Press Information Bureau, the government's nodal agency to disseminate information.

The unit conducted a series of over 40 fact-checks and found several videos spreading misinformation about the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice, the Supreme Court, the Election Commission and the EVM voting system. These videos, the government said, had been watched over 30 crore times.

The examples of misinformation shared on the channels included fake news items claiming that future polls would be held through a ballot system. Another video claimed that the government was distributing money among anyone who holds a bank account or an Aadhaar card.

These YouTube channels, the probe found, were using logos of TV channels and images of prominent news anchors to mislead the viewers into believing that the news was authentic. "These channels were also found to be displaying advertisements on their videos, and monetizing misinformation on YouTube," the PIB statement said.

The PIB added that more than one hundred YouTube channels have been blocked by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting over the past one year as part of its crackdown on misinformation.