How many of us think twice over the veracity of an information we get through social media? Just because it is served on the social media platter we readily consume it as truth. Thanks to social media platforms that serve as kangaroo courts where allegations and concocted stories instantly become established alternate realities, the blow to truth is irreversible.
A media report published in 2019 stated that one out of two Indians receives fake news through WhatsApp and Facebook. The data speaks for itself but the magnanimity of fake news influence becomes even clearer when the most famous name of Bollywood industry Amitabh Bachchan shares three fake news theories on something as grave as Covid-19, within a fortnight on Twitter. He has over 40 million followers and unfortunately at a time when Indians would be looking up to this cult celebrity for genuine information, his account has become a hub of fake news dissemination. In a matter as threatening as Covid-19, Bachchan senior is either becoming a victim of fake propaganda or deliberately choosing to remain uninformed.
The fake news machinery corroded the tolerant fabric of Indian society long before the poison of fake stories spilled out in the open and social discourse worsened from bad to ugly. I would like to state a particular incident in my life where I lost an amicable acquaintance to the onslaught of fake news. It was the time my mother was going through leukemia treatment in a private hospital at Faridabad. There I met a trainee nurse from Uttarakhand who attended my mother. She was a pleasant girl in her early twenties, who liked to talk and make friends during her free time. She called me ‘Didi’ and we connected on WhatsApp.
Like many enthusiastic WhatsApp users, she started sending me morning wishes without fail. Soon after, the messages became more frequent and took a morbid turn. Everyday there was some obnoxious and gory piece of fake news evoking loath and hatred for the perpetrators of the depicted crime. Understandably, none of those cases were ever reported by credible international and national news sources simply because they never occurred. On many occasions I told her that the stories are fake and she should not to be misguided by such pieces of misinformation. But such forwards never stopped coming until I blocked the connection to put an end to the torment. The malicious propaganda was targeted against a particular community. As an individual I had no choice beside that.
Fake news as a tool to wage propaganda war and create a set opinion is very effective in a country like India. There are approximately half a billion internet users in the country, and it has the largest number of social media users in the world. While there are portals like Snopes, Hoax Slayer, Check 4 Spam, Boom Live, AltNews, etc. to check the authenticity of a content, yet most of the fake news goes viral before it is debunked. Besides, in India WhatsApp allows users to post messages in 10 local languages such as Hindi, Bangla, Punjabi, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Kannada, and Malayalam, which makes the problem even more complex to debunk fake news at regional and local levels.
Realizing the mass appeal of fake news, many media houses looking for greater viewership have put aside the true journalistic ethos of objective reporting. They are surfing on the murky waters of yellow journalism, building news stories on conspiracy theories rather than factual evidences. Few such masterpieces of flabbergasting proportions were run by news channels like Republic TV, ABP News, ZEE News, and India TV reporting on Tablighi Jamaat congregation that was held during the mid-March in Delhi. News anchors left nothing to imagination and went out to call the congregation and members of the Jamaat as terrorists, criminals, perpetrators of biological warfare, and whatever the bizarre theories of fake news could support to instigate Islamophobia. It well served the purpose and soon there was hatred, loathing, and animosity towards Muslims greater than the threat of the Corona virus.
Yes, there is surely a spike of COVID- 19 cases related to the Tablighi Jamaat event, but there has been no news of tests conducted on other religious gatherings or any other congregation held throughout India during the time. Sporadic cases of private social events have come to light that have also served as hotspots of contagion but none has received the attention of fake news.
For the record, India’s current population stands at 1.339 billion and the country had just tested 42,788 samples by March 31. According to the Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba, 15 lakh air travelers entered India between January 18 and March 23, 2020. This figure does not include travelers entering India through sea routes and international land borders. While the reality stares in the face that India has a mammoth task ahead to combat a disease as deceptive and challenging as COVID-19, the blame game continues. For the larger part of Indian media it is just the Nizamuddin Markaz that is the prime source of COVID-19 infection.
Certainly, COVID-19 is a novel threat, which took the world off guard and some of the most developed nations failed miserably to combat it. The world was in denial. While some compared it to common flu others simply found it constricting to take social distancing seriously. The United States, which has been currently worst hit, also has individuals and groups who have not yet realized its threat. The governor of New York Andrew Cuomo has recently said that individuals can face a maximum fine of $ 1,000 for violating the state’s social distancing rules. It is a desperate measure by the state administration to discourage people from socializing. Statistics available as of April 8, 2020 for the state of New York, reports 6268 deaths and 11,504 confirmed cases of COVID-19 so far.
Coming back to the Indian scenario, in less than a month we have seen health workers being ostracized, funerals being denied, communities getting targeted, poor and marginalized bleach bathed, quarantine facility conditions questioned and each of it has a constant contributor to the woes – fake news. Feeding on the fear that COVID-19 has generated, the industry of fake news is buzzing with false claims, misinformed beliefs, and innumerable theories that will be more difficult to control if the state machinery and people do not act responsibly. It is ironic that when the nation should be focusing more on combating a pandemic, a lot of positive energy is wasted on dispelling rumors and fake news.
All in the name of religion…from east to west and north to south