On January 19, Union minister of information and broadcasting Anurag Thakur warned that action would be taken against websites and YouTube channels that are “conspiring against the country”. About a month before, the Union government took down 20 YouTube channels for publishing “anti-India” content.
What’s more, information and broadcasting secretary Apurva Chandra has now said that the ministry has given orders to block 35 more YouTube channels, websites and Instagram handles allegedly based in Pakistan and spreading “anti-India” content, calling their efforts a “war of misinformation against the country”.
Even as the government continues with what it claims to be a “crackdown on fake news”, several questions remain, especially surrounding the process by which the government identifies the accounts to be blocked and what the administration considers “fake news.”
The Wire‘s Sumedha Pal looks deeper into the recent events and tries to find the answers to these questions.