Six YouTube channels are peddling fake news, says PIB

Together, Nation TV, Samvaad TV, Sarokar Bharat, Nation 24, Swarnim Bharat and Samvaad Samachar were allegedly spreading fake news about President, PM, Union Ministers and EC

The PIB Fact Check Unit of the Ministry released six separate Twitter threads having over “100 fact-checks to counter the fake news spread by these channels”.  | Photo Credit: Twitter/@PIBFactCheck

The Press Information Bureau’s fact-check unit has detected over one hundred videos uploaded on six YouTube channels that monetised “fake news”, and had garnered more than 50 crore views.

These channels, which had combined subscribers of over 20 lakh, used clickbait thumbnails to peddle fake news pertaining to the President, Prime Minister, Union Ministers and the Election Commission, said the Information & Broadcasting Ministry on Thursday.

The six YouTube channels, Nation TV, Samvaad TV, Sarokar Bharat, Nation 24, Swarnim Bharat and Samvaad Samachar, were allegedly working in a coordinated manner and spreading false information in the country.

After the fact-check unit busted the fraud, the names of four channels were changed by their operators. They also started deleting the videos.

A #YouTube channel 'Samvaad TV' with over 10 lakh subscribers was found to be propagating #FakeNews about the Government of India and making false claims about the statements of the Union Ministers. @PIBFactCheck
found almost all of its content to be fake.

Here's a thread👇 pic.twitter.com/MQxsMF7CeI

— PIB Fact Check (@PIBFactCheck) January 12, 2023

False claims

It was alleged that the YouTube channels made false claims regarding a purported ban on Electronic Voting Machines, and attributed false statements to senior Constitutional functionaries, including the President and the Chief Justice of India.

“The channels are part of a fake news economy that thrives on monetisation of fake news. The channels use fake, clickbait and sensational thumbnails and images of television news anchors of TV channels to mislead the viewers into believing that the news was authentic and drive traffic to their channels in order to monetise the videos published by them,” said the Ministry.

This was the second such action taken by the PIB fact-check unit. Earlier, on December 20, 2022, it had exposed three channels peddling fake news.

After the Ministry directed YouTube to take down the three channels — Aaj Tak Live, News Headlines and Sarkari Updates — they were removed from the platform.