Following the Pahalgam militant attack, the Union Government has banned 16 Pakistani YouTube channels, including major outlets like Dawn News, Samaa TV, ARY News, and Geo News, for spreading provocative, communally sensitive content and for pushing false and misleading narratives against India, its Army, and security agencies.
Together, these 16 channels have a combined following of 63.08 million subscribers.
The banned channels include major Pakistani news outlets such as Dawn News with 1.9 million subscribers, Samaa TV with 8.2 million, ARY News with 14.6 million, BOL with 7.85 million, and Geo News, which has the highest following at 18.1 million.
Other affected channels are Raftar with 804,000 subscribers, The Pakistani with 288,000, Samaa Sports with 73,800, GNN with 3.54 million, and Suno News HD with 1.31 million.
Individual creators such as Irshad Bhatti with 827,000 subscribers, Umer Cheema with 129,000, Asma Shirazi with 133,000, Muneeb Farooq with 169,000, UzairCricket786 with 308,000, and Raaz Nama with 270,000 have also been banned.
One of the notable affected entities of this crackdown is former Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Akhtar’s YouTube channel, “100mph.”
When attempting to access these channels, users are met with the message: “This content is currently unavailable in this country due to a government order relating to national security or public order. For more information about government removal requests, please visit the Google Transparency Report (transparencyreport.google.com).”
Meanwhile, according to reports, the government, through the Ministry of External Affairs, conveyed its strong objections to BBC head Jackie Martin after BBC India referred to the terrorists as “militants” in one of its reports.
The BBC article, titled “Pahalgam attack: How will India respond to the Kashmir killings,” published on April 23, 2025, describes the incident as “the deadliest militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir since 2019.”
India has a history of engaging with international media outlets over terminology in conflict reporting, particularly regarding Kashmir.
Following the 2016 Uri attack, the Indian government criticized foreign media outlets for referring to the attackers as “separatists” instead of “terrorists,” with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) issuing statements urging global media to adopt India’s terminology.
In 2020, the Indian government reportedly reached out to the BBC to protest its coverage of the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir, particularly over the use of terms like “clampdown” to describe India’s security measures, which India felt misrepresented the situation.
