KHUSHI SHAH – Mumbai Uncensored, 26th April 2022
Fake news has been around as long as human civilisation, but it has been turbo-charged by digital technology and the transformation of the global media landscape.
Fake news articles that are intentionally designed to manipulate people’s perceptions of reality and have been used to influence politics and promote advertising. It has also become a method to stir up and intensify social conflict. Stories that are untrue and intentionally mislead readers have caused growing mistrust among Indians.
Earlier India had banned 22 YouTube channels in April 2022 for spreading misinformation about India while 20 more were banned in December last year. Continuing to crack down on the disinformation campaign against India, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting banned 16 more YouTube channels, 6 of them from Pakistan and 10 of those from India. As per the ministry, these channels were involved in targeted disinformation against India, that was designed to hurt India’s internal security, foreign relations, and public order.
The Government of India has blocked these YouTube channels by exercising emergency powers under the IT Rules 2021. These YouTube channels were trying to incite anti-national views, communal hatred and create an atmosphere of panic in India. There were more than 68 crore subscribers on these channels.The Youtube channels from Pakistan, were found to have been used in a coordinated manner to post fake news about India on various subjects such as the Indian Army, Jammu and Kashmir, and India’s foreign relations in the light of the situation in Ukraine, etc.
The ministry also provided several examples of offending headlines, some translated from Urdu, including, “Germany demands sanctions on India”, “Saudi announces to stop oil export to India, “America demands Kashmir from India”, “Thousands of Taliban militants infiltrate India”, and so on.The blocked Indian channels together had over 25 lakh subscribers and collective views of more than 42 crore. They comprised Defence News24x7, SBB News, Latest Update, Aaj Te News, Technical Yogendra, Hindi Mein Dekho, MRF TV LIVE, The Study Time, Saini Education Research, and Tahaffuz-E-Deen India.Pakistan’s blocked channels had more than 17 lakh subscribers and had racked up 26 crore total views. They included AjTak Pakistan, Discover Point, Reality Checks, Kaiser Khan, The Voice of Asia, and Bol Media Bol.
With so much free information online it’s easy to get distracted by all the false materials polluting the web. Authoritative resources that were once considered official, have been overrun by online websites that are intentionally created to share and spread low quality, false information.A generation ago, information that appeared in print enjoyed a certain legitimacy whatever the source, but today, people tend to trust and believe those closest to themselves, and end up in their own echo chamber. I firmly believe that the sources which will flourish in the future will be the sites that are trusted, with accurate information. The need for high quality news is greater than ever.
