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. Details of these YouTube channels fact-checked by PIB are as under:
| SI. No. | Name of YouTube Channel | Subscribers | Views |
|
|
Nation Tv | 5.57 Lakh | 21,09,87,523 |
|
|
Samvaad Tv | 10.9 Lakh | 17,31,51,998 |
|
|
Sarokar Bharat | 21.1 thousand | 45,00,971 |
|
|
Nation 24 | 25.4 thousand | 43,37,729 |
|
|
Swarnim Bharat | 6.07 thousand | 10,13,013 |
|
|
Samvaad Samachar | 3.48 Lakh | 11,93,05,103 |
| Total | 20.47 Lakh | 51,32,96,337 | |
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, etc. Examples 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.
