Multiple posts (here and here) featuring videos of prominent media houses allegedly promoting an online gaming platform are being widely shared across social media platforms. Through this article, let’s fact-check the authenticity of these videos.
Claim: Videos of various media houses promoting an online gaming platform.
Fact: These viral videos from various media houses promoting an online gaming platform are edited and being shared to spread misinformation. Playing such online games involving real money carries a high risk of losing your money. Moreover, in some states of India like Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, and Assam, all forms of real money online games are prohibited. Hence, the claim made in the post is FALSE.
Video-1:
Upon careful observation of this video, we can notice the logo of Telugu media house ‘ETV Andhra Pradesh’. In the video, the entire news broadcast is in English, whereas ETV Andhra Pradesh is a Telugu news channel that delivers news only in Telugu. Additionally, we can see the news anchor holding a mic with the India TV logo. The video further features clips from PTI news and ends with a byte featuring a Congress politician from Hyderabad, Telangana. Furthermore, we can see that the news scrolling feed contains many misspelt and improperly used Telugu words, which generally does not happen in original news publications.
Video-2:
Upon careful observation of this video, we can notice the logo of Malayali media house ‘Manorama News’. In the video, the entire news broadcast is in English, whereas Manorama News is a Malayali news channel that delivers news only in Malayalam.
Upon carefully reviewing these videos, we can also observe a mismatch between the audio and visuals. The lack of synchronization between the audio and visuals is evident.
Furthermore, we have checked the social media handles of ETV (here, here, here, here, here, and here), and Manorama News (here, here, here, here, and here) to determine whether they have indeed shared any videos promoting gaming platforms. However, we didn’t find any posts or videos on their social media promoting any kind of gaming platforms. Based on all this information, it is clear that these media houses did not publish any videos promoting online gaming platforms. These viral videos are edited and shared to spread misinformation.
According to news reports (here and here), in December 2023, the Government of India banned a total of 581 apps, including 174 betting and gambling apps, and 87 loan lending apps. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) issued a blocking order against some 22 ‘illegal’ betting apps and websites, upon a request by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). The banned apps were involved in money laundering through hawala, crypto, and other illegal routes. Some of the banned apps include Mahadev, Parimatch, Fairplay, 1XBET, Lotus365, Dafabet, and Betwaysatta.
According to reports, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, and Assam have prohibited all forms of real money online games. Playing such online games involving real money carries a high risk of losing your money.
To sum up, these videos showing various media houses promoting online gaming apps are edited and fake.
