Centre blocks 35 Pakistan-based YouTube channels for anti-India fake news

In second such action in a month, the government on Friday said it has blocked 35 YouTube channels, two websites, two Instagram and Twitter accounts as well as one Facebook account operating from Pakistan for waging a "war of misinformation" by spreading "totally toxic fake news" in a coordinated manner.

Information and Broadcasting Secretary Apurva Chandra told a press conference that the action was taken by invoking the emergency provisions of the law after receiving inputs from the intelligence agencies on Friday about the channels and social media accounts. The blocked YouTube channels cumulatively had a subscriber base of 1.2 crore and video views running into 130 crore.

The Ministry issued orders under Rule 16 of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

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In December, 20 YouTube channels and two websites were similarly blocked when the emergency powers under the IT Rules, 2021 were first used to act against such networks.

Last time, Chandra said, the intermediaries had blocked access to these platforms worldwide and they do expect the same this time too, though the Ministry's order is specific to India.

Information and Broadcasting Joint Secretary Vikram Sahai said the 35 accounts blocked by the Ministry were identified to be part of four coordinated disinformation networks, which included Apni Duniya Network operating 14 YouTube channels, and Talha Films Network operating 13 YouTube channels. A set of four channels, and a set of two other channels were also found to be acting in synchronisation with each other.

All these networks appeared to be operated with a "single goal of spreading fake news oriented towards the Indian audience" and used common hashtags and editing styles, were being operated by common persons, and cross promoted each other’s content. "Some of the YouTube channels were being operated by anchors of Pakistani TV news channels," he said.

Sahay said the topics handled by the blocked channels were on Indian Army, Jammu and Kashmir and India’s foreign relations with other countries.

At the press conference, some of the content used by the blocked channels were shown, which included accusations against Prime Minister Narendra Modi and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval for the death of Gen Bipin Rawat in a chopper crash and North Korean army reaching Ladakh to help the Chinese army among others.

"The channels propagated content to encourage separatism, divide India on the lines of religion, and create animosity among the various sections of the Indian society. Such information were feared to have the potential to incite the audience into commission of crimes adversely affecting public order in the country," Chandra said.

He said it should also be the responsibility of intermediaries like YouTube to take into account these "totally toxic" content and should have a system to flag such content.

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