'4 PM' YouTube Channel Blocked To Curb Anti-India Narratives: Centre Tells Delhi High Court

The Central Government has filed a response opposing a plea challenging its order blocking access to “4 PM” YouTube channel, saying that the platform peddled anti-Indian propaganda and used digital lobbying to promote a one sided narrative. In its response filed through Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the Centre has said that the content published on the YouTube channel is a sustained pattern of speculative, one-sided, malicious and unsubstantiated dissemination of conspiracy theories, peddled as a fact, on matters directly touching India's external relations, internal security, defence, and public order.It is said that the videos hosted on the channel attributed grave acts to the Union of India, such as compromising India's strategic autonomy, taking sovereign stand qua its military position under foreign influence, having prior awareness of military action in West Asia, endangering Indians abroad and permitting India's foreign policy to be shaped by communal considerations at the biggest of foreign states who are in an inter-se conflict.The Centre further said that the content of the '4PM' channel also include per-se false, inciting, destabilising information on subjects such as terrorism, internal security of border state of Jammu and Kashmir and Manipur, Pahalgam terror attack and the Indian armed forces. “It is further submitted that the content published by the channel insinuated great conspiracy theories such as Indian authorities' involvement in the Pahalgam attack, it questioned the genuineness of India's military response, depicted security agencies as complicit and presented defence related debts and schemes through fabricated narratives that could erode confidence in the armed forces,” the affidavit states. As per the response, the content aired on '4 PM' YouTube channel were found to be detrimental to the sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of the state, public order and friendly relations with foreign states which fell within the ambit of the grounds referred to under section 69A of the IT Act, 2000. “It is further submitted that the nature of the content published on the channel was not just a few stray uploads, but a holistic examination of the same manifested a consistent degenerative editorial pattern peddling anti-India/anti-Indian Armed Forces/anti-Indian Foreign Policy sentiments across all subjects, time period and formats. It is also submitted that the content was without any evidentiary value speculative, one-sided, and misleading, whether in relation to West Asia, Kashmir, Pahalgam, the Armed Forces, Manipur, trade arrangements, or social tensions within India,” it added.Further, the Government has contended that it is a classic case of “digital lobbying” done through Internet Platforms and that the Channel acted as a “Digital Echo Chambers” to perpetrate “Influence Operations.” It said that digital media was used not just for reporting but to deliberately create and amplify a specific narrative.“It is submitted that the manner in which Petitioner's channel operates, clearly reflects the hallmark of a “digital echo chamber”, where selected and repetitive content is circulated to promote a single narrative to influence public opinion. In the present digital ecosystem, such dissemination is not neutral, as it is often driven by engagement- based incentives, including revenue linked to viewership and reach,” Centre has said. “…what was once a relatively linear process of lobbying through traditional media has evolved into a decentralised yet highly potent system of digital narrative propagation, wherein financial inducements, algorithmic amplification, and coordinated messaging converge is used to influence the body politic and to exert unethical and extraneous pressure on sovereign decision-making process to either induce or compel it to take decisions which are in alignment with external interests,” it has added. The Centre has taken a stand that where the material on record demonstrates that an account is engaged in a “systematic nefarious agenda of peddling unlawful content,” the appropriate and proportionate remedy lies in disabling access to the account' as a whole, rather than undertaking an “endless and ineffective exercise of identifying and removing individual pieces of content.”“Such an approach alone ensures that the statutory objectives underlying Section 69A—particularly in relation to public order, sovereignty, and security—are meaningfully achieved, and that the regulatory mechanism is not rendered otiose by the evolving and evasive nature of digital dissemination,” the response states. The plea has been filed by channel's editor, Sanjay Sharma and 4 PM News Network seeking restoration of the YouTube channel and all its content. A direction was sought to call for records relating to the blocking of channel and to quash the blocking order issued by Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. As per the plea, the channel, which had ...

'4 PM' YouTube Channel Blocked To Curb Anti-India Narratives: Centre Tells Delhi High Court

Nupur Thapliyal

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