Sources said one of the handles was a fake video of a Cabinet meeting in which audio from another source was overlaid on the video.
A senior government official said the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) identified 73 Twitter handles, four YouTube channels and one Instagram game for fake and inciting content, and asked the social media intermediaries to suspend them. These accounts have been suspended following instructions.
These handles were identified after Twitter users tagged Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar, asking him to look into their content.
The official said one of the Twitter handles was a fake video of a Cabinet briefing, which was accompanied by audio from another source. Other derogatory pages and posts targeting Hindu women were also taken down, including an animated video that shows violence against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Earlier in the day, Chandrasekhar tweeted, “Taskforce on Safe & Trusted Internet at @GoI_MeitY at work.”. Handles that tried to push fake/inciting content on twitter, youtube, fb, insta have been blocked.”
He said the owners of these accounts would be identified for appropriate action under relevant sections of the law, and that the platforms would also be held accountable for their due diligence.
The MeitY had asked the Indian Computer Emergency Response System (CERT-In), the nodal agency responsible for monitoring cyber security incidents and related threats, to form a “high-level committee” to investigate complaints that a website had hosted doctored, “lewd” pictures and objectionable comments “intended to insult Muslim women.”
Over the last week, the Delhi Police have arrested four people, including a 21-year-old they claim is the “mastermind” behind the creation of the website on which objectionable pictures of women were posted.
This week, at least 100 doctored photos of Muslim women were posted online with lewd remarks. GitHub removed the content, but many Twitter users tagged the women and posted screenshots of the website.