How to Combat Fake News or Information and Disinformation in India

The Circulation of Fake News or Information and Disinformation in India 

Elections are round the corner in India. 5 states will go to polls namely Rajasthan, Chattisgarh, Mizoram, Telangana & Madhya Pradesh. Close to 161 million voters will cast their votes & exercise their franchise, the parliamentary election is also due in 2024. The festival of democracy is the election & it is about to kick start in India, the world's largest democracy. Elections will be by & large transparent and are likely to be violence barring a few polling stations which may be a bit sensitive. The Election Commission will look into it though & make necessary arrangements.

 

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To strengthen democracy, it's imperative the voters must be given authentic information so that they can make informed decisions. On the contrary, prior to any election, it has been observed fake news and misinformation take center stage which is something a strong democracy can ill afford. It never serves the purpose of letting the voters take the right call. So fake news must not be allowed to circulate and must be dealt with firmly.

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Recently a video was circulated of Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh saying that people are fed up with B.J.P. and it will face defeat this time. On careful inspection, it came to light that the original video had been edited & it turned out to be a review meeting of PM Shri Narendra Modi's visit to Bhopal in June. Such fabricated videos are misleading and weaken democracy, as the voters are deprived of accessing the original content or hoodwinked into believing the fake news is a piece of genuine news. 

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In another video, it was shown that the former CM of Chattisgarh applying tilak on a photo frame of the Enforcement Directorate. It was later revealed that he was applying tilak on the picture of God Narayan. The video was photoshopped.

Social Media Role: The Differences Between Disinformation and Misinformation

A study, Industrialized Disinformation 2020 global inventory of organized social media manipulation, conducted by the University of Oxford in 81 countries, including India, states that 90 percent of countries have misinformation campaigns that involve pro-government and pro-party propaganda, 94 percent of countries have misinformation campaigns that attack the opposition and mount smear campaigns, 73 percent have misinformation campaigns that suppress participation through trolling or harassment and 49 percent have misinformation campaigns that drive division and polarise citizens. This goes on to reflect how deep-rooted such propaganda is. Surely an ordinary citizen will get baffled if he is constantly fed misleading information.

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In the run-up to any election, the circulation of fake news, false propaganda and edited videos has become a normal feature which does not augur well for any democratic country. In 2022, X formerly Twitter, a major social media platform took down 11 million tweets as those tweets were found violating the policies of X on misinformation. Facebook removed 23 million pieces of content once again for violating its policies on misinformation. These are staggering in fact shocking figures. People are being targeted to believe things that never happened in the first place. Every user may not be informed or feel the need to check out the truth. They may take the fake news or misinformation at its face value without further investigation.

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What you can do in such a case is to verify the news or videos? The answer is "Google Fact Check Explorer". How to use it? We will let you know the same below. Fact Check Explorer helps you to fast-check articles or claims made. It enables you to find a fact check that has been investigated by independent organizations from all across the globe related to various languages on viral social media posts. If you want to search then enter a keyword related to the social media post. You also get a language preference when you search for the relevant term.

By using this tool, you can verify whether the post you have been sent is authentic or not. Google will also introduce another feature which will be a " search by image" feature. All these are measures to curb the spreading of fake news in order to avoid any major damage.

Conclusion

The circulation of fake news must be checked and put a tight lid on. Social media can be accessed by people easily and some elements can misuse such platforms for creating misleading information or campaign. Merely by looking at the content of fake news or videos, it's difficult to make out the authenticity of such news or whether the information circulated is fake, paving the way to a chaotic scenario. It is advised, that if you have the slightest suspicion about a news or video that you have received on your social media account then don't forward it further. It's wiser to play safe instead of getting into an unwanted situation. We have highlighted the ways you can technically verify news and information. So next time, if you are in a state of doubt then just go ahead and verify the news or videos. If you like our articles then keep sharing your feedback in the comment section.

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