We are living in an era of Post Truth, of Alternative Facts and ‘news’ that is often downright fake. Some start from rumors, some are maliciously created by people with an agenda; some of this is just propoganda. Many of these ‘news stories’ are things that never happened; others are highly embellished stories with barely a grain of fact. The real culprits are we the people on social media who enthusiastically forward unverified stories because we want to believe them, because they are horrifying enough or because they agree with our world view.
Tim Cook has called for a massive campaign against fake news because he believes that this is “killing people's minds”. He cited the example of the recent US presidential election where numerous fake stories were circulating on social media.
Some of these stories are made up by creators to generate profit for themselves and their organisations. Other stories are made up for purposes or political propaganda and to whip up public sentiment. While some of this ‘news’ is so silly that we are able to identify it as complete nonsense; other stories are more insidiously believable.
We Indians have always been quick to believe rumors. Even in a pre-social media era, rumors were quick to spread. Maggi, Pepsi and Frooti all had to give clarifications that their products did not contain inedible poisonous substance, plastic and contaminated blood respectively. In recent times our political affiliations and personal beliefs have determined what we are willing to forward. Remember this one – Julian Assange never said this but it went viral nevertheless.
Most of us received WhatsApp forwards about the Indian PM and the Indian national anthem being “declared best by the UNESCO”. There were various reports and even videos about a GPS chip in new currency notes, about our display pictures being used for terror activities, Jayalalithaa’s ‘secret daughter’, about salt shortages and much else… all of these were fake.
How does a fake story gain traction and go viral? Livescience.com says that part of the problem is our own “confirmation bias” – if something confirms our beliefs and preferences we are inclined to believe it. Our regrettable interest in the prurient and the salacious is another reason we forward bizarre, titillating or horrifying news, videos, pictures etc. Another problem is the difficulty sorting the real from the fake. We no longer receive our news from one or two sources – we are bombarded by forwards, social media posts and it’s difficult to sort the genuine from the spurious.
Watch this video featuring TV personality Samantha Bee – where she talks about the Pizza-Gate incident and investigates the phenomenon of fake news. Fake news creators are real people paid by propagandists and marketers or those hoping to generate an income for themselves. Please don’t forward without verifying! And no – tacking on a “forwarded as received” disclaimer doesn’t absolve you of the responsibility of checking the source, ensuring that it is reliable, cross checking another reliable source and only then forwarding it.
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