Fake News : Dangers Of Fake News
In today’s world, fake news has become a serious threat to many people. Fake News can be any news, story, or hoax that misinform people or deceive the readers. Social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, and even Google are how fake news is growing.
Fake News can be created by any political party, too, to push various political agendas. These kinds of false information reach the common people and thus affect the free speech and informed choices of the country’s subjects. Fake News leads to the hijacking of the democracy of any country.
Fake News is not a new thing that is rising with the growth of India’s social media applications. From ancient Greece, the governments and people who were in the business of mobilizing public opinion always invested in campaigns to spread wrong information intentionally to build their own choices of narratives.
There are various causes behind the spread of fake news in India. In today’s India, news media and their journalists are no longer seen arbitrating real news or creating news neutrally. These news media allegedly act as the echo-chambers of the dominant political parties.
Thirty-five crores of Indians use different social media applications, and it has become very easy to spread fake news through social media. Among these 35 crores, 20 crores of people use WhatsApp alone. We all know how various fake stories reach us through this application. The no, of people using WhatsApp is so high that it is almost impossible to trace the news’s source.
Lack of legislation is also a big reason behind this growth of fake news in India. There is no particular law that can deal with fake news in India. According to Article 19 of the Indian constitution, free publication or broadcasting of News in India is a fundamental right or freedom of expression. Recent studies have confirmed that Indian citizens don’t even try to look for the truth. Rather, they look for evidence to support the fake news they have shared.
Fighting against this fake news can be dealt with three prongs: rebuttal, removal of fake news, and educating the public. A rebuttal is a form of fact-checking where the fake news is corrected from mistakes like a mismatch, malicious editing, and misattribution.
Technical companies like Facebook and YouTube use high-level coding language to create algorithms that help remove fake news from their respective social media platforms. WhatsApp has also limit messages you can forward so that you can’t forward unlimited texts that can include fake news.
Nowadays, many people have understood that whatever we share may not be true at many extents. But still, there a huge no. of people in India who have no clue about fake news. So, we must educate them. The Indian Government has propagated a new method that can track the source of fake news.
While we have seen the above mentions ways to deal with fake news, we have kept this in mind too that it is impossible to remove fake news even after rebuttal completely. Rebutting fake news is possible, but the political agenda inspired “fake news factory” will keep making fake stories.
