Fake news has been prevalent since ancient times. In the 13th century BC, Rameses the Great spread lies and propaganda portraying the Battle of Kadesh as a stunning victory for the Egyptians. The treaty between the Egyptians and the Hittites, however, reveals that the battle was a stalemate. In the 21st century, both the impact of fake news and the use of the term became widespread. The increasing openness, access and prevalence of the Internet resulted in its growth. New information and stories are published constantly and at a faster rate than ever, often lacking in verification, which may be consumed by anyone with an Internet connection.
With the advent of social media such as Facebook and Twitter, fake news has grown from being sent via emails to now being sent to millions of social media handles at the click of a button. And most people who receive fake news don't have the means of determining whether the content is genuine or fake and they in turn forward those fake messages/news/videos to others. Thus in a few hours, a blatantly false piece of information can become viral and cause lasting damage to individuals and our society as a whole.
On Friday, 5th November 2021 a website called www.conservativebeaver.com published a breaking news story with the headline "CEO of Pfizer arrested by the FBI, charged with fraud – media blackout as #PfizerGate trends".
Pfizer is an American pharmaceutical company having annual revenues of over one billion dollars and, along with its German partner BioNtech, manufacturer of the hugely successful Covid vaccine.
The report went on to describe in specific detail how the Pfizer CEO, Albert Bourla was arrested at his home in the affluent suburb of Scarsdale, New York on Friday morning by the FBI and charged with multiple counts of fraud. The news story claimed that "Bourla is being held while he awaits a bail hearing. Federal agents are in the process of executing a search warrant at his home and at multiple other properties he owns across the country. Albert Bourla faces fraud charges for his role in deceiving customers on the effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccine." The report accused Pfizer of paying off governments and the mainstream media to stay silent.
The news of Albert Bourla's arrest spread like wildfire especially in social media such as Facebook and Twitter and soon millions of people started receiving this news on their mobile phones. But there was a problem though, as the news of his arrest began to get circulated online, Bourla was seen giving interviews on various US TV channels and none of them mentioned anything about his arrest.
This was because the FBI had not arrested the Pfizer CEO. It was fake news concocted by the Conservative Beaver website. Moments after the news went viral, fact-checking websites such as Snopes.com debunked the news of Bourla's arrest as fake news, but by then the damage had been done not just to Pfizer's reputation but also the reputation of its famous CEO. This is just one recent example of how malicious and malafide fake news is.
As celebrated American author Mark Twain once said "a lie can travel around the world and back while the truth is still lacing up its boots". In today's digital age, absolute lies and fake news are being peddled as facts and circulated online.
In India, the scourge of fake news is a real and present danger. Most lynchings or murders of innocents in broad daylight are caused by fake WhatsApp/Facebook forwards whether it is the killings by cow vigilantes; the murder of sadhus in Palghar, Maharashtra in April 2020 by a vigilante group who mistook them to be involved in child kidnapping and organ harvesting or the brutal killing of two Assamese youths (Nilotpal and Abhijit) in Karbi Anglong, Assam in 2018 by villagers who thought that they were "child-lifters" because one of them had dreadlocks! It all began because of a fake WhatsApp forward and ended up taking the lives of innocents.
Hundreds of other similar cases, of innocents being brutally killed on suspicion of the following: "smuggling" cows, "organ stealers" and child-lifters etc are reported every week. Instant vigilante "justice" is being meted out on the streets mostly by uneducated/semi-educated villagers based on fake WhatsApp forwards.
Pictures of piles of bodies of children killed in a chemical attack in Syria were forwarded on social media as those of young boys and girls who had been kidnapped by child snatchers who then killed them and took out their vital organs.
This obviously fake viral video spread fear in the minds of villagers and so when four members of a nomadic tribe offered biscuits to a girl in Rainpada, Maharashtra in 2018, a crowd gathered around them demanding to know their antecedents. Soon the matter went out of hand and the four innocent men were brutally murdered by the mob who neither had the acumen nor the understanding to differentiate between victims killed in a poisonous gas attack and actual "organ snatchers".
Evidence suggests that people tend to react hastily and share fake news without thinking carefully about what they have read or heard and without checking or verifying the information. But there has to be a way to prevent the spread of fake news so that it doesn't cause any more harm.
The best way forward is of course self-regulation by the tech companies such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter who have to change their algorithms that can detect fake news and stop its spread at the source itself. So far the tech companies are reluctant to invest resources or put systems in place to stop the spread of fake news on their platforms.
Secondly, there had to be some intervention from the Govt., especially the US Govt., as most social media companies are based in that country, to put pressure on them to regulate fake and malicious content and penalise them by imposing hefty fines for non-compliance.
Then it is us - the consumers. We should have the clarity of thought and understanding and the ability to discern between facts and fake/malicious news/content. In our hurry to be the first to share some news or videos, we end up doing more harm. We need to take a pause and read what's being forwarded to us on primarily two platforms - WhatsApp and Facebook - and then decide on the authenticity of the information that is being shared before we forward it to someone.
We can always refer to fact-checking sites such as Snopes.com, Hoaxslayer.com etc for verifying international content or Altnews.com, Boomlive.com etc for cross-checking content shared from India.
Finally, law enforcement agencies need to take severe punitive action against individuals and/or groups who misuse social media platforms to peddle fake news or harmful content which can cause irreparable harm to our social fabric or besmirch an individual's reputation.
Degree of Thought is a weekly community column initiated by Tetso College in partnership with The Morung Express. Degree of Thought will delve into the social, cultural, political and educational issues around us. The views expressed here do not reflect the opinion of the institution. Tetso College is a NAAC Accredited UGC recognised Commerce and Arts College. The editors are Dr Hewasa Lorin, Dr Aniruddha Babar, Nisha Dahiya and Meren. For feedback or comments please email: dot@tetsocollege.org
