On Monday (26 September 2022), the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) decided to block 45 YouTube videos from 10 YouTube channels under the IT Rules 2021, which empowers the government to block digital content that is seen as a threat to sovereign integrity, internal security, or for maintaining law and order of the nation.
Such blocking of content has been a regular practice by the government for at least a year now. The bulk of the digital content blocked comprises blatant fake news, Pakistani propaganda, incendiary content, or content that violates the laws of the land such as showcasing a wrong map of India or other violations of content guidelines.
Officials of the Ministry of I&B prepare such ‘block lists’ after getting inputs from intelligence agencies and other monitoring groups or after receiving complaints from the public. Such lists are then given to the ISPs (Internet Service Providers) or Intermediaries (like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.) who comply with the government order, which is issued under the IT Rules, 2021.
However, on Monday, YouTube made an unusual exception to the block list and refused to block a video by popular vlogger Dhruv Rathi, which featured in such a block list. The presence of Rathi’s video in this list was confirmed by media reports and tweets by journalists. Rathi is known to be a pro-AAP commentator and has been accused of spreading misinformation and propaganda through his videos by his critics.
Akhilesh Sharma, a senior journalist from NDTV, tweeted and included a screenshot of the concerned video by Dhruv Rathi. The screenshot clearly showed that Rathi had included a distorted map of India in his video where parts of Kashmir were shown as part of Pakistan or ‘disputed’. Carrying such a map of India is a punishable offence.
The said video was uploaded by Dhruv Rathi on 11 April 2022 and it claimed to explain why Imran Khan lost power in Pakistan. Dhruv Rathi makes videos on various issues where he claims to explain anything from politics to science to movies to travel and just about anything. The said video also included “paid promotion”.
At 4.41 minutes in the YouTube video, the distorted map of India was displayed by Dhruv Rathi where parts of Indian territory were shown in Pakistan, due to which this video was included in the block list by the Ministry of I&B.
While YouTube blocked all other videos, this particular video by Dhruv Rathi remained online hours after the government informed about the decision via a press release. Not only that, what made the whole affair suspicious was the fact that the controversial part of the video was subsequently edited by Dhruv Rathi and the Kashmir map was blurred.
What Ministry sources said about Dhruv Rathi video being in blocked list and why YouTube has not taken it off yet
Intrigued by this development, OpIndia reached out to officers in the Ministry of I&B, who confirmed that Dhruv Rathi’s video was indeed there in the list sent to YouTube. They expressed shock and surprise that YouTube made this special allowance for Rathi.
“They (YouTube) have been complying with our orders and this is the first time we have come across such a development. This is very strange and we are trying to get more information,” an officer in the ministry said, “A content creator has all the rights for redressal and the same has been accounted for in the IT Rules, 2021. In this case, the creator has to submit their case and offer an explanation to the government and the government can decide the case on merit. But this is the case where YouTube appears to have taken the liberty of deciding a matter themselves.”
The official wondered if there was some ‘insider’ actively helping Dhruv Rathi circumvent the block list by taking remedial action without having to appeal to the government.
“Normally YouTube or any other intermediary will send a standard communication to a user informing them about a legal or executive order, advising them to talk to respective law enforcement or government agencies for a redressal. Such communication doesn’t include specific information as to which particular part of their content was problematic. This is clearly someone going out of the way to help Rathi circumvent a government order,” the official said.
Ministry of I&B officials also disclosed that Dhruv Rathi has not even bothered to furnish information as was sought by the ministry. Many content creators and digital news publishers, including OpIndia, have duly furnished such information to the government.
Since Rathi has taken a remedial step in this particular case and he doesn’t reside in India, acting against him will be a little tricky, the official said, but the entire episode puts a question mark over the conduct of YouTube. The video-sharing platform by Google appears to be hands in glove with someone who has been actively doing anti-government propaganda.
It should be noticed that various content creators have complained about high-handedness by YouTube and vague communication by the US-based company when it comes to content-related policies, but there the company seems to have gone out of its way to help Dhruv Rathi with specifics.
Users also have long been complaining how YouTube have been pushing and promoting Dhruv Rathi’s content to them despite them not being interested. There has been complaint of a rigged algorithm to favour content creators of a particular ideological and political bent.
😀😀. Worse that FB/Google/Twitter, is the algorithms that works in unfathomable ways to promote content in YouTube. For the last 2 months, YouTube is relentlessly forcing me to watch Dhruv Rathee’s ‘Kerala Model’ https://t.co/qpm1kafXWa
— Prasanna Viswanathan (@prasannavishy) October 18, 2020
I don’t know why @YouTubeIndia recommends me @dhruv_rathee videos all the time. I don’t like his videos don’t know if YouTube is promoting Dhruv Rathee or YouTube algorithm works that way to promote videos of someone whose content you do not want to watch.
— Himanshu Singh (@ihimanshu20) September 1, 2022
A few months ago, a YouTube channel named “SabLokTantra” by popular Hindi vlogger Rachit Kaushik by deleted. Kaushik tried his best to reach out to YouTube to resolve the issue, but all his attempts were stonewalled. But Dhruv Rathi seems to have special access to YouTube. YouTube clearly needs a lot to explain here.
Update: After the OpIndia report, YouTube proceeded to block the video by Dhruv Rathi where he had spread misinformation and displayed the wrong map of India, for Indian audiences. When one clicks on the YouTube link of the video, the message that is displayed says, “Video Unavailable: This content is not available on this country domain due to a legal complaint by the government”.
