Note4Students

Fake news had incited violence among various communities.it also mislead the people into deep misunderstanding. Government has to take serious measures to contain fake news. So this discussion will help to understand various perspectives.

Introduction

• 1. Fake news is a threat to democracy in a way more perverse than most people appreciate.
  2. In these times of easy access to the ability to crunch large amounts of data, unstructured and in real time,
  3. it is possible for political parties or, more realistically, specialist troops employed by them, to profile individual voters and flood them with news, fake and real, that would accentuate perceived favourable political propensities or neutralise perceived hostile inclinations.

Recent Examples

1. Earlier this year a major news studio in the country doctored a video of a protest in JNU to raise doubts on the legitimacy of the educational institute. This video was further propagated by another mainstream news channel on primetime television without verification. This led to a national furore that culminated in a public thrashing of students inside court premises by lawyers and a gaping divide in public sentiment.
2. Hoaxes of GPS chips in the Rs 2,000 note did the rounds after the prime minister’s November 8 demonetisation speech. Spread by both media and WhatsApp messages (the latter being the source of numerous misleading stories in the country), it led to wide scale confusion among recipients of the new note.
3. fake photographs that have been used in facebook to inflame passions after the communal disturbances in Basirhat and Baduria in Bengal.
4. The face-swapping technology, Face2Face, developed in Stanford University, makes it increasingly easy to generate realistic videos that will allow a user to impersonate anyone she wants with amazing accuracy
5. The fake videos that are currently circulating in the Kashmir Valley (originating from both sides) showing gruesome attacks on the Army as well as inhuman repression of the civilians in order to rouse passion, may soon look like harmless pranks. With the arrival of the new and highly sophisticated fake videos, the situation can quickly go out of control.
6. The recent Election in US this has gained momentum to counter each other candidate’s arguments among public with social media.

How bad it is

1. People’s faith in social, print and electronic media reduces which could affect the benefits of these Media.
2. It can lead to violence between two or more communities thereby creating enmity and hatred between them.
3. It can disturb the social fabric of the society and tensions among communities persists for long times.
4. It reduces the tendencies of cooperation between different communities.
5. Political parties try to gain political advantages by polarizing the voter’s mind which further intensifies the tensions between different sections of society.
6. Politics of development takes back seat and communal tendencies emerge in politics.
7. In its purest form, fake news is completely made up, manipulated to resemble credible journalism and attract maximum attention and, with it, advertising revenue.
8. Political campaigning has progressed from mere appeals in the name of identity or loyalty or tall promises to something akin to psychological warfare. Parties that master the tools of such psych ops have a distinct edge over those stuck in the traditional mud. Fake news spreads on social media.

How to tackle it

1. The government must take the initiative to make all sections of the population aware of the realities of this information war and evolve a consensus to fight this war. It must also take strict action
2. News being spread using chatbots and other automated pieces of software should automatically be selected for special screening. Ordinary consumers of news can play a big role by, first, waking up to the reality that all they read on WhatsApp and Twitter is not the gospel truth, and then, by refusing to pass on what they cannot independently verify with other sources.
3. Websites that mimic well-known, credible media outlets in their name should be exposed with the vigour with which jokes are shared on social media.
4. An ombudsman deals with the credibility of news sources, it gains the privilege to ensure facts are reported
5. Government should have independent agency to verify the data being circulated in social and other media. The agency should be tasked with presenting real facts and figures.
6. Government should have mechanism for immediately issuing of notice against sites/people/agencies involved in spreading fake news.
7. There should be a provision of effective balances and check of filtering fake posts before it getting viral.
8. Social media websites should be made accountable of such activities so that it becomes their responsibility to have better controlling restricting the spread of fake news.
9. Government should take active measures for promoting awareness among people about fake news and their consequences.
10. Government should enlist penal provisions to perpetrators of fake news if it causes violence or deaths.
11. Government should make mandatory for Print and Electronic media to have internal mechanism for verifying incidents, facts and figures.
12. Public should verify the accuracy and of reliability of any news or data either from government or any independent agency specifically involved in such task.
13. Public should not blindly trust any sensitive news and should not forward it to others.
14. Public should inform concerned department about any fake post as soon as they come across. They should act as active vigilant for maintaining peace and harmony in the society.
15. NGO’s and other civil society groups can play important role in spreading awareness about the ill effects of fake news.

Some Efforts To Contain Fake News

1. Facebook changes to its News Feed to reduce stories from sources that consistently posted clickbait headlines. Last month, Facebook announced another update so that misleading posts would be downgraded. Now, Facebook will take into account clickbait at the individual post level in addition to the domain and page level, in order to more precisely reduce clickbait headlines.
2. Now some websites like Altnews.in, media vigil and Debunked are doing the work to debunk the false news.

Conclusion

A more proactive measure would be to prosecute those who incite hatred and violence by spreading fake news and fake images. Traditional media has a big stake in discrediting purveyors of material that is not editorially validated. Fakery can harm both democracy and the media business. Eternal vigilance against it is, indeed, the price of liberty.