New Delhi: The Central government is taking strict action against the spreading of fake news across social media platforms. The recent action was taken on 3 YouTube channels. Govt issued orders to YouTube, one of the largest video streaming platforms to take down 3 channels that spread fake news. “The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has directed YouTube to take down the three channels Aaj Tak Live, News Headlines, and Sarkari Updates”, said an official source.
Allegedly, these three YouTube channels were spreading fake news on various issues including the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and the Prime Minister’s National Election Commission. In view of that, the central government took action against these YouTube channels. The total number of subscribers in these three YouTube channels was more than 33 lakhs.
According to the statement given by the central government, these three YouTube channels were closed by the fact check unit of PIB (Press Information Bureau). Among these three YouTube channels, the ‘Aaj Tak Live’ YouTube channel has been tweeted by PIB’s Fact Check Unit as a ‘fake news hub’. The number of subscribers of this channel was 65 thousand. The ‘Government Update’ YouTube channel had 22 lakh 60 thousand subscribers and ‘News Headlines’ had about 10 lakh subscribers and about 32 crore views on its videos.
Apparently, more than a hundred YouTube channels were closed by the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on charges of spreading fake news even a year ago as the PIB sources said in a statement. This is a necessary step to stop the spreading of fake news across the globe.