New Delhi: Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said on Friday this has issued orders to block 35 YouTube channels, two websites, each Twitter and Instagram account, and one Facebook account, all from Pakistan, to spread anti-Indian content “Coordinated ways in digital media”.
Fake content, anti-India contains references to Indian troops, Jammu and Kashmir, Indian foreign relations with other countries, including false information about the death of the former Head of the Defense Staff General Bipin and content that tries to weaken the election in the five polls .
The I & B ministry said the channel also distributed separatist content, which had “the potential to incite its audience with the crime commission that affected public order in India”.
Orders January 20 came just one month after the ministry was called, for the first time, an emergency information technology clause (guidelines for intermediary and digital media code of ethics), 2021, to block 20 YouTube channels and two websites on December 20 last year.
Secretary Union I & B Apurva Chandra refers to destructive content as a “wrong information war against India” and said the blocking command follows a fresh intelligence input on YouTube accounts operating from Pakistan.
Some YouTube channels, said Chandra, has a total customer base of more than 1.2 crores and anti-Indian content that they conserved have more than 130 crore views.
He said orders to block social media accounts and websites were issued after Indian intelligence agencies, which strictly monitored accounts and websites marked them to I & B services for immediate action.
“While the ministry is still alive to find and blocking such content, we also call people to mark such content when they see it.
It is also an intermediary responsibility to create a system where such false and toxic content is automatically marked,” Chandra said .
In December, when the Ministry ordered the blocking of 20 YouTube channels, YouTube has responded by blocking not only in India, but also globally, within 24 hours of the Ministry marking content.
In accordance with IT rules, the interim command of the Ministry to Dot, YouTube and the social media platform must be ratified at the Inter-Department Government Committee (IGC) meeting within 48 hours.
This, the secretary with Vikram Sahay said, possibly early next week