On Thursday, Union Minister Anurag Thakur informed about the blocking of 104 YouTube channels, 45 videos, 4 Facebook accounts, 3 Instagram accounts, 5 Twitter accounts and 6 websites. He said that these channels, websites and social media accounts were spreading misinformation in the society which could pose a threat to national security. In response to a question in the Rajya Sabha, Minister Anurag Thakur said that according to the IT Act 69A, if any digital media content poses a threat to India’s sovereignty, India’s security, security of states, friendly relations with neighboring countries, then such content should be banned. There is a provision for blocking. He said that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has issued instructions to block 1643 user generated URLs (URLs), which include webpages, websites, posts and social media accounts, from 2021 to October 2022.
The minister said that the government has taken action against them as per the above rules, and will not hesitate to take such action if needed again in future. Let us tell you that on Wednesday, the government had asked YouTube to stop three such channels which were spreading misinformation about works released in public interest. The Press Information Bureau Fact Check Unit declared these channels responsible for spreading fake news.
It was told by an official source that three channels running on YouTube including Aaj Tak Live, News Headlines and Sarkari Updates were asked to shut down. Here it was also clarified by the government that Aaj Tak Live is not related to India Today Group. These channels have been found to be misleading the users by putting photos or logos of TV news channels and their anchors so that people believe that the news told by them is true.