A Quick Case Study on Fake News

A few days ago, news broke that the Yogi Adityanath led UP government has decided to end the SC, ST and OBC quota for private medical institutions. Facebook and Twitter exploded with posts congratulating the Yogi for ‘boldly going where no man has gone before’. While most netizens were left wondering what Patanjali product the Yogi takes, to have the ‘stones’ to make such a popular yet politically suicidal decision. The support and praise for this groundbreaking policy was short lived. As it turns out, the news story was fake. Not only was no such decision made by the new government but also no SC-ST or OBC quota ever existed for private medical colleges in Uttar Pradesh.

The interesting part though, is that this story did not come from some conspiracy peddling, ultra biased, hate mongering website; It came from the well renowned and established media house — India Today.

Gone are the days when fake news articles were simple hoaxes created to fool a gullible few into believing and sharing these outrageous stories. Oh! how we hid our faces in shame when our uncles and aunts shared some ridiculous WhatsApp forward on those already unbearable family groups. How we laughed at those online, who fell for these extremely implausible news stories.

Today, fake news stories contain elaborate lies that are packaged with ‘clickbaity’ headlines which come from diverse sources. This makes such news stories hard to debunk, easy to believe and quick to circulate. Fake news doesn’t always exist to serve the malicious intent of its author; such news could easily be the result of sloppy journalism. Due to the rapid expansion of the number of social media users, fake news can reach a critical mass of people very quickly. The more a story is shared, the more likely the story is seen to be true. For the news article on the SC -ST quota abolishment in UP, just 4 websites - India Today, Rajnikanth Vs Cid Jokes, MensXP and National Dastak were responsible for around 200 thousand shares on Facebook. Additionally, these stories were also posted on their Facebook pages which have a combined following of 2.5 crore . If re-tweets from Twitter and forwards from WhatsApp were added, the number of people this story reached is an astoundingly high number.

Regardless of the source and intent behind this fake news story, its almost impossible to reverse the perceptions and opinions created by the article. When India Today finally issued a clarification on their news piece, it got less than 100 shares on Facebook. People had already accepted the article as genuine and had moved on to being outraged about some other new issue of ‘national importance’ . This is perhaps the deadliest consequence of fake news in our society -

People hold on to the misinformation and ‘alternative facts’ spread by dubious news articles which not only distorts their understanding of current news events but also taints their interpretation of news events in the future.

People still believe that Kanhaiya Kumar shouted anti national slogans in JNU; people still believe that PETA was secretly funded by Cola companies to destroy indigenous cattle breeds by banning Jallikattu and people still believe that Prime Minister Modi initiated demonetization in response to an imminent threat of Pakistan dumping 15 trillion rupees of fake currency notes into the Indian economy. Tomorrow, when news stories on the above topics resurface, any meaningful discussion or debate will be greatly disrupted by people holding faulty assumptions and incorrect facts, all of which will only seek to aggravate the pre-existing divisions in society.

Its important to note that people who consume, believe and propagate fake news aren’t just trolls or uneducated folk , they are our college educated friends, our well-to-do colleagues and our relatives who still feel that the new Shivaji statue will have solar cells that can light up parts of Mumbai.

Even though both Facebook and Google are developing tools to prevent the proliferation of fake news, their effectiveness can be rendered obsolete if netizens continue to share and forward works of fictitious news. There are, however, some unique characteristics of fake news that can help us identify and prevent it from spreading. Though these characteristics aren’t universally applicable, they do help provide a framework to judge the authenticity of a news article

• Reputability —Most renowned media houses have well established reporting standards that are (mostly) followed. Unlike articles posted on a (fictitious) SickularSux.com , which probably has a saffron clad writer finding links between Satan and Barkha Dutt, most articles posted on legitimate news websites go through some level of editorial checks which prevent false facts and incoherent arguments from being published. Other than a few instances of sloppy journalistic work, most mainstream news media provides factual coverage of news and are more reliable than websites like India Arising or Postcard News which have a known track record of publishing false and contentious information. Furthermore, sites like ‘MensXP’ and ‘Rajnikanth Vs CID Jokes’ are not news sites and often publish stories that haven’t been verified. Its better not to trust the same website that also publishes articles such as “14 Psychological Hacks To Make Women Fall For You”.
• Source — News articles that include legitimate sources or data are considered more authentic than those that don’t . Quite often, pseudo news sites magically conjure information and facts without any real sources and publish them as genuine stories . Sometimes even established media websites publish articles that do not contain any sources or supporting proof. Take a look at the India Today article claiming the abolishment of SC-ST quota and the TOI article refuting that claim.

Its safe to say that including information from legitimate sources goes a long way in preventing the spread of misinformation. So if a news story does not contain any authorized sources to support the claims made in the article, there is good reason to doubt the authenticity of that news.

• Corroboration — Every news organization wants to play an active role in bringing important news stories to the attention of its readers. However, if a certain news has not been reported by a majority of new outlets, it could be fake. A simple google search is enough to establish the number of news organizations that have endorsed and reported a particular news story. Like the India Today article mentioned The fact that the India Today article about the SC ST quota abolishment in UP was not carried by any other established media organizations clearly indicates its lack of authenticity.

As citizens who are continuously bombarded with authentic and fictitious information from all sides, it is of utmost importance that we teach ourselves to be more critical of what we read, believe and share. Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are no longer just meant for people to share vacation and marriage photos or find out which Harry Potter house they belong to. They have become an important space for people to discuss ideas and influence public opinion. Each of us acts as an ‘Arnab Goswami’ to people on our friend lists and its essential that we do our due diligence before sharing news articles and we leave the spreading of rumors and falsehoods to ‘pados waali Sharma aunty’.