The Press Information Bureau (PIB) fact check unit has announced the crackdown of over a hundred videos on six channels that were monetising fake news. According to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the videos have garnered over 50 crore views and the channels have a combined 20 lakh views on YouTube. It 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, it claimed.
The channels include names such as Nation TV, Samvaad TV, Sarokar Bharat, Nation 24, Swarnim Bharat, and Samvaad Samachar.
“The channels spread fake news about the elections, proceedings in the Supreme Court and Parliament of India, and functioning of the Government of India, among others,” the PIB fact check unit stated. These included claims about bans on electronic voting machines (EVMs), and false statements attributed to senior constitutional functionaries such as the president and Chief Justice of India.
According to the ministry statement, the channels are part of a fake news economy that uses 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 monetise the videos published by them.