Sunny Dua
Describing them as inauthentic and spam, Facebook on Monday removed 687 pages and accounts linked to individuals associated with Indian National Congress (INC) party, and 15 pages, groups and accounts linked to pro-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The social media giant however denied involvement of these individuals into peddling fake news yet brought down their pages. Which party’s which sites are blocked is not an issue but voting on drumbeats, fake news and mere illusions should be a serious affair for voters not associated with any of the parties.
These commoners need to be attentive enough to identify spam, stay away from vilification campaigns, not get carried away by hate speeches, bank upon authentic information and cast their votes without any prejudice. It’s the party workers and leaders who are bound to vote for their respective parties and not the common voters who are free to choose between right and wrong. Since, people hook on to phones, televisions, social media, newspapers, radio besides word of mouth campaigns and pamphlets whatever comes their way to get information they stay vulnerable to fake news.
The major flaw in this ‘Fast News World’ is authentication of contents. While print and electronic media are registered with governments and guided by laws of the land, social media has fallen into the hands of millions of individuals where it had almost become impossible for the regulators as well as owners to keep a check on contents that people post on their individual pages. This is the major reason fake news makes inroads into social setup and at several times leads to unrest.
Google, Whatsapp, YouTube and even Facebook besides Instagram during past some time have launched massive campaigns through print and electronic media to make people aware of fake news. On the other hand unless people stop circulating fake news, which most of them cannot distinguish, it’s going to take some more time in checking the same in larger interest of world. Since India is in election mode and political outfits are leaving no stone unturned to reach out to masses the wise thing for people is to ensure that in this battle, truth doesn’t become a casualty.
Strangely on same Monday when Facebook removed pages linked to political outfits in India, Singaporean lawmakers introduced legislation to combat fake news. It said social media sites responsible for content which the Government deems false will be held responsible. Singapore in order to have protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill aims to “prevent the communication of false statements of fact” and “enable measures to be taken to counteract the effects of such communication,” according to the draft.
The new law says that if the social websites won’t take down whatever government feels is ‘wrong’ or deny publishing “corrections” next to information flagged as false, the parties can face fines of up to $1 million Singapore dollars (approximately $740,000) and 10 years in prison. The bill comes just days after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg called for global regulators to establish worldwide standards for online content.
Social sites in India though have cracked their whip on those trying to promote spurious information or spam yet those unaware of fake news or unable to identify cropped images, twisted words, fake logos, changed voices, morphed videos, wrong captions, misleading headlines, wrong places and even wrong people continue to fall a prey to fake news. In this ‘Battle of Fake’ news the ‘Battle of Ideologies’ is somewhere getting butchered which is the irony.
Now when social media is going to stay and provide politicians a platform for exchange of ideas none other than they themselves are required to set rules to have a level playfield. Dharma-Yuddha as referred to Mahabharata also signifies that the war is not fought for gain or selfish reasons but to uphold principles of righteousness. Unless present day political outfits won’t set rules for themselves, their campaigners will continue to go to any extent to defame each other by even involving personal lives of their mentors. This is where facts are suppressed or altered to suit situation.
In ancient times opponents made and followed rules to make war fair. In a righteous war, equals fought equals, chariot warriors never attacked cavalry and infantry and celestial weapons were never used on ordinary soldiers rather were forbidden. Unless the modern day political warfare rules of engagement are not set out as to how the social media is to be used, fake news will continue to make its presence felt in people’s hand-held devices, misguiding and taking them away from facts.
The only option visible now is that Election Commission of India (ECI) asks politicians to enter into healthy debates, censure their contents before publishing, make rules and follow them with ethics or stop using social media for campaigning at all. This might sound impractical for the reason that modern day medium of reaching out to people cannot be ignored but unless ways are explored to check spread of fake news or legislations like Singapore are introduced, a select medium can be put to use for reaching out to people.
Hiram Johnson – a progressive Republican senator in California too had said and I quote, ‘The first casualty, when war comes, is truth’. This, he had said during World War I. Fake news, pictures and videos are massively storming people’s brains because of the fact that no-one is holding moral grounds in Battleground 2019 as well. This war is also making truth biggest casualty.
The Press Club of Jammu in collaboration with Google Initiative had very recently organised a day-long workshop to make people aware of social media use and the recent trend of circulating ‘fake news’. The trainers did their best to reach out to nearly 100 people including journalists, students from different universities and teaching faculty making them understand fake news and identifying means to stop or identify the same. This was a useful exercise that needs repetitiveness.
So far as long human desire to seek information stays it makes no difference which medium is used which means people stay vulnerable to fake news. And if this goes unchecked, brining out legislation like Singapore did is not a bad idea. Malaysia approved a similar law that was also faulted for repressing public expression ahead of elections. France and Germany have already adopted legislation to fight fake news and hate speech besides Australia is set to propose a bill to regulate social media in the wake of live-streamed New Zealand massacre. In nutshell the key mantra should be “mend your ways or the law will”.
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