PIB Fact Check Unit exposes six YouTube channels that have monetized fake news

New Delhi: PIB Fact Check Unit exposes six YouTube channels that have monetized fake news. The PIB Fact Check Unit (FCU) of the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting busted six YouTube channels which were working on 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.

This is the second such action from the Unit under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting where entire channels have been busted. 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.

The YouTube channels exposed by the PIB Fact Check unit spread fake news about the elections, proceedings in the Supreme Court and Parliament of India, functioning of the Government of India. Like as include false claims regarding ban on Electronic Voting Machines, and false statements attributed to senior Constitutional functionaries including the Hon’ble President of India, Hon’ble 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 the viewers to believe that the news was authentic and drive traffic to their channels in order to monetize the videos published by them. This is the second such action by PIB Fact Check Unit. In an earlier major action, on 20th December, 2022, the Unit had exposed three channels peddling fake news.

PIB Fact Check on fake news peddling YouTube Channels

According to PIB, six YouTube are Nation TV, Samvaad TV, Sarokar Bharat, Nation 24,Swarnim Bharat, and Samvaad Samachar. All six YouTube channels have 20.47 lakh subscribers and 51,32,96,337 views.

Informed Shared By PIB, A YouTube channel ‘Nation Tv’ with over 550K subscribers and over 21 crore views has been found to be propagating Fake News about the President, Union Ministers & the Election Commission of India. PIB Fact Check found almost all of its content to be fake.

A YouTube channel ‘Samvaad TV’ with over 10 lakh subscribers was found to be propagating Fake News about the Government of India and making false claims about the statements of the Union Ministers. PIB Fact Check found almost all of its content to be fake.

A YouTube channel ‘Sarokar Bharat’ with 21,100 subscribers and over 37 lakh views have been found to be propagating Fake News regarding the President of India, Prime Minister, and several other Union Ministers.

A YouTube channel ‘Nation 24’ with more than 25.4K subscribers and close to 44 lakh views has been found to be propagating Fake News about the President, Prime Minister, Supreme Court of India and the Election Commission of India.

A YouTube channel ‘Swarnim Bharat’ with over 1,013,013 views has been found to be propagating Fake News about the Prime Minister, Union Ministers, Election Commission of India & Supreme Court of India. PIB Fact Check found almost all of its content to be fake.

Another YouTube channel ‘Samvaad Samachar’ with about 3.5 lakh subscribers and over 12 crore views has been found to be propagating Fake News about the President, Prime Minister, various Cabinet Ministers & Chief Justice of India.