Real or Fake- The truth behind news you see everyday
“We have killed him”
Those were the words heard by Abhijit Nath’s girlfriend who had called him for the umpteenth time to inquire when he would be coming back from his short trip to a waterfall in Assam, India. Instead, he and his friend were killed by a mob of over 100 using bamboo sticks and wooden planks. According to multiple reports, Nath and his friend Das were spotted in their SUV by some villagers, as they were heading back home on June 8, 2018. The mob waylaid them and dragged them out, beating them senseless until they collapsed and breathed their last. The two were killed because the crowd thought they were child abductors, as rumours concerning the same were making rounds on local Whatsapp and Facebook groups (Source: Times of India).
This is not the only case in recent times that has fuelled a mob to take the law into their hands and carry out a public lynching. In August 2018, 43-year-old Alberto Flores and 21-year-old Ricardo Flores were dragged out of a police station in central Mexico before being lynched by over 200 people. They were rumoured to be child abductors and organ farmers, but police found no truth in the statement (Source: Mirror UK). Mashal Khan of Pakistan was lynched in 2017 by a mob after bogus accusations of posting blasphemous content on social media channels (Source: The Wire). Similar instances have been recorded in many countries, where fake rumours have spread over Whatsapp and other social websites, enraging mob to take part in a lynching.
What is Fake News?
The term ‘Fake News’ was not used so regularly a few years ago, but now it has now become an accepted part of the daily lives of the commoners. Fake news is considered one of the top threats to the smooth functioning of democracy and free speech and debate. But what is fake news? Even after all the commotion, it has caused, not many agree on what it is and what to do about it.
Fake news can be considered false stories which appear to be real news and is spread on mainstream media or online channels. Fake news consists of deliberate disinformation written in a way to seem real and published with the aim to generate revenue and even sway political and religious views. However, intentional satire and comedy fake news is also quite relevant in today’s world, the function of which is to generate amusement through hypothetical instances based articles. Although, the term fake news has also been used to cast doubt in the minds of the people upon actual news from an opposing ideology, mainly political or religious. This ploy is known as ‘the lying press’.
Fake news can be dated back to 32 BC when the final war for the Roman Republic (The War between Antony and Octavian) took place. The war took place after Julius Ceaser was murdered and the throne was left vacant. Fighting for the throne was Mark Antony, the loyal general of Julius Ceaser, and Octavian, Ceaser’s adopted son and successor. In the end, Octavian emerged victorious, but the thing to notice was not who won the battle but how the battle was won. Octavian used a smear campaign against Mark Antony using disinformation to swing the Roman’s Republicans in his favour. As the war was over and everyone knew of the misinformation spread throughout the span of the war, Octavian reinvented his identity as Augustus, the first emperor of Rome. The cloud of misinformation and fake news still looms over our head, even after 2045 years of Octavian changing his name to Augustus.
Why Should I Fear Fake News?
The impact of media on reputation has gravely changed in recent years, majorly due to the introduction of social media channels into the mix. The ease of spreading information to millions of users around the world has changed the way any news is perceived, and the impact of misinformation and fact news is increasing day by day. While most of it is done in the political and religious domain, many other aspects of society are being riddled with fake news and causing nuisance, and even endangering lives in doing so.
A classic example of fake news being used for personal gain and public distress is the tweet sent out in 2013 by the official Twitter account of ‘The Associated Press (AP)’. The tweet read
“Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is Injured”
This ‘fake’ alert from one of the most trusted news sources in the United States of America rattled the stock market and wiped out over 130 billion US dollars from the market. Investors lost millions in a matter of seconds, all because of a tweet a hacker put out after breaking into the Twitter account of AP. Even though the money was recovered sooner or later, the system saw one of the steepest crashes in a matter of seconds, showcasing its vulnerability.
On the other end of the spectrum was the 2012 article by an American finance website, which read ‘Another revival could be in store for ImmunoCellular Therapeutics’. The report focused on the work done by the company to develop a cancer drug that would act as a cheap alternative to what its rival offer. The stock prices of the company tripled in a few months, and the investors patiently waited for the release of the drug, which unfortunately never came. Six years later, the share price is less than .5% of its value before the article was published. It later merged that the firm paid a writer to frame the article on the website to drive its stock value up.
But groups have been peddling hate and misinformation for years now, and they have endangered lives. There exists a ‘cult’ online which shares fake news related to diseases and general health, which is highly dangerous in the long run. Some of the health-related fake news is given below.
· Heating or cooling plastic bottles will release a chemical into your food and water, which is found in cancerous tissues.
This fake news has been shared for over 14 years now, and many have fallen prey to it. This claim has been debunked many times by relevant institutions, but it still gets rebranded and re-shared over a new social media channel all over again.
· Parents of victims of a school shooting blamed for fraud
20 children were killed by a gunman who stormed into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut and shot around senselessly, before turning the nozzle to his face and pulling the trigger. Soon enough, many stories were circulated online stating that no such shooting occurred and the grieving parents were frauds. What followed were death threats and even fake Twitter accounts of the parents to spread the lies even more (Source: Columbia Journalism Review).
· Vaccines cause autism
This has been one of the oldest and strongest examples of fake news, as distrust of vaccines and misinformation related to it can be traced back to the 18th century. A simple search of the term vaccination on any major social media website will yield thousands of videos and photos ‘claiming’ that a trusted organisation has finally revealed that vaccinations are unsafe and can cause autism. The damage is unfathomable, and there have been estimates that vaccines could have saved thousands of children every year that died due to preventable diseases, because of anti-vaccination beliefs (Source: Daily Mail).
Tackling the Menace that is Fake News
The rise of social media has been the main reason for the menace that is fake news. Websites and applications such as Twitter, Facebook, Whatsapp and many more have become breeding grounds for fraudulent news propagandists. According to a study by researchers at MIT, fake news travels faster than genuine news, as people often tend to share the news that fits their ideology, irrespective of its reliability (Source: MIT News).
There have been multiple attempts to stop the spread of misinformation to curb danger to freedom of speech and fake news. Here is a look at the situation in select countries.
France
The French parliament has passed a ‘fake news’ law which aims to guard the nation against ‘the manipulation of information’, especially during the time of any election. The law backed by President Emmanuel Macron has received severe backlash by parliamentarians on the opposite side. They believe it is a clear attack on freedom of expression and an immoral move to bring a ‘thought police’ to the nation. The law in the discussion would allow a candidate or a political entity to appeal to the court to halt the publication of information considered to be false, in the three months before the national elections (Source: Euro News).
Brazil
14 draft laws are under scrutiny in the Brazilian parliament, all related to the distribution of fake news. The country suffers from high dosage of misinformation, which was evident in the presidential elections held in October earlier this year. Social media channels and messaging apps such as Whatsapp were filled with fake news and propaganda to demean the candidates participating in the elections (Source: Reuter). The laws that are being discussed aim to defuse the fake news conundrum on the internet and may even provide jail term for the perpetrators.
Malaysia
The Malaysian parliament passed a law in April 2018 which would punish the dissemination of fake news partially or entirely with fines of RM 500,000 (nearly 120,000 US dollars) and prison sentences of up to six years. The bill was slammed by the opposition and multiple groups which believed it was an unfair method to silence the criticism coming along the way of the government. In May 2018 however, the kingdom fell, and the opposition gained the majority in the elections, and the law was in danger of abolishment. After review and consideration, the law was repealed in August 2018 (Source: CNN).
Kenya
The president of Kenya, Mr Uhuru Kenyatta signed a bill in May 2018 which criminalised online bullying and circulating fake news. The clause related to fake news states that anyone posting false, misleading or fictitious data may end up in prison for up to two years or be fined for 50,000 US dollars, or both. After a group of bloggers filed a petition against the law in the court, the court suspended the Cybercrime Act in May 2018till the case was resolved. The court extended the suspension of the law in October 2018 (Source: Kahawatungu).
The Curious Case of China
Misinformation is being frowned upon and tackled by state regulators all around the world, and many countries have bought in legislatures to control what goes on the Internet and how fake news can be reduced. In China, however, the state governments and social media platforms share an incredibly intimate relationship.
One of the biggest social media companies in China — WeChat, has been supported and controlled by the government for over seven years now. The application has over 1 billion active users, and it has been speculated that it helps the spread of misinformation for supporting the national propaganda. The application launched an in-app debunking program, which would include WeChat’s own fact-checkers and volunteers. The feature also included a ‘Top Ten Rumours Page’ which included the top fake articles being shared on the application. The move however raised theories that WeChat could easily manipulate the articles in the list and show only those articles which challenged the government’s ideology.
However illogical it may seem, it seems possible in the case of China. For three years straight now, China has been dubbed the world’s worst abuser of Internet freedom by multiple independent watchdog organisations (Source: Freedom House). This ‘honour’ was given to China due to its unrestrained censorship programs, called the Golden Shield Project. The project features IP blocking, DNS filtering, URL filtering and packet filtering to restrict the usage of certain foreign websites.
The ban has led to temporary amnesia of certain events, as the government-controlled channels have been slowly draining out certain events which were anti-government in nature. One such incident was the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, where students protested in Beijing over a number of political and apolitical matters. What followed were automatic rifles and tanks grazing through the protestors, and the estimated deaths varied from 180 to 10,000. The online resources to the incident have been since then depleted and hidden from the general public. Many other incidents that have been locked out of people’s view are ‘the 2014 Kunming attack’, ‘destruction of hutongs’ and several pieces by jailed individuals who held anti-government views (Source: Blocked on Weibo).
Conclusion
Each country is tackling with the threat of fake news with its own policies. However, some states are themselves spreading fake news to keep a tight grip on the institutions and continue inducing fear in the minds of commoners. Fake news is causing heaps of trouble in our daily life, yet we ignore it thinking it is someone else’s problem. We as common people need to be on the lookout for fake news and help curb the spread of misinformation, to retain the pillars of democracy and allow the smooth functioning of the society.
