India: Fact Check Unit flags 6 YouTube channels for allegedly false online information

On 12 January 2023, the Fact Check Unit of the Press Information Bureau under the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting of India exposed 6 channels on YouTube for spreading fake news about the Election Commission, Supreme Court, Parliament, and the Government of India. The Fact Check Unit found that the channels, whose videos had a total of 500 million views, mislead viewers by using fake and sensational thumbnails and images of television news anchors in order to drive traffic to their channels and monetize the videos published by them. A currently proposed Amendment to the IT (Intermediary Guidelines & Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 would require social media platforms and other intermediaries to make efforts not to display and discourage their users from posting, transmitting, sharing and updating information that is classified as "false", "untrue", or "misleading" by the Fact Check Unit.