[Day 1] The Era Of Fake News - Social Media

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Social media has changed the way how information is exchanged across the world. It started as a means to connect people, create a network of friends. Now, it has evolved much more than that. Anything which goes through the lens of social media is magnified and sometime explodes exponentially, which we are known by the word 'viral'! You can keep talking about good and bad about social media, it is never ending. In this particular post let us see how social media plays a role in this 'Era of Fake News'.

Social media gained momentum when everyone were empowered with cheaper internet and increased bandwidth. In India, the growth of social media platforms increased significantly after Reliance Jio was introduced. The consumption of online videos increased dramatically. While the consumption increased, people were tempted to share more online content and also to generate some revenue. It helped many original content creators, while it also made few to of them to post junk contents(on a hope to generate some revenue). Some of them took it to spread their hatred, mischief, misinformation, controversies etc. On the other hand there were people who expect some sensational news or controversy or gossip all the time, that encouraged the content creator to fabricate the stories. Fake news were spread just because of speculations, assumptions and miscommunication.

In a social media, if someone has created a 'fake' sensational news or gossips, it doesn't reside only in the youtube. It is then shared on facebook and someone from facebook with keep sharing to his network, then someone shares the same thing in twitter then it is spread through whatsapp. Likewise the cycle continues, the story takes a ride from youtube, facebook, whatsapp, twitter and it continues until we have some other news comes up.

How fake news go viral ?

It is a general human tendency to react sharply on controversy or surprises. Fake news provides us that surprises and controversy which our mind can easy accept and we makes us feel it is correct, sometimes we even feel to 'inform' others about what we have got to know so we share it across our network of family and friends. Due to social media and internet(in everyone's pocket literally) it is spread quickly and easily. The flow of information is rather quick and people accept every information as fact.

Social media doesn't give you time to validate and check authenticity of the information, if someone whom we follow or any friend shares something we firmly believe that it would be true. The same goes with the recommendations from family/friends regarding food, restaurant, movies etc. Word of mouth plays vital role, here it is replaced by social media. So we easily fall for fake news.

Recent Incidents..

In recent years in India, we saw many incidents where people even lost their life due to fake news. Can you imagine giving candy to kids can get you killed ? Yes, it happened in India. Irrespective of where the people live, it has changed the mindset of the people. I was surprised to see how our people in towns and villages blindly believe any information passed through whatsapp. There were whatsapp group within the town/village/area which updates news within their locality etc.(something like citizen journalist), people keep sharing content about latest events and happening along with some 'additional' info which is usually 'fake' or 'fabricated'.

Few months back a particular stock of a company fell massively(around 30-40% in a single trade day), the next day we got to know the reason was some whatsapp message which shared some obsolete or wrong data about the company, that message was shared/forwarded across many trader groups. The panic selling resulted in huge loss to the investors.

Sometimes the an old news is also circulated as latest happening, that it also categorized as 'fake news'. For example some politician would have criticized another politician long back but that video or news article surfaces again as fresh controversy. Some people create fake content to gain some popularity or to spread their false propaganda.

Recently in India we witnessed the sad incident of attack on CRPF soldiers which killed 40+ and severely injured many, soon people started reacting in social media. News based on their own assumptions started making rounds, some even shared older news articles/photos citing them as recent bombing(many would have forwarded without verifying its authenticity). Few whatsapp/fb posts had bloodshed photos. Videos showing dead men in pool of blood as our slain soldiers, emotional background songs(from Hindi movies), unverified information(like 500kg explosive etc). I don't understand why people create such videos and share them across different social media, it doesn't solve the problem instead aggravates, induces fear & hatred. Many believe those visuals as true and forward it to others in their network and it continues. CRPF officially had to ask people to refrain from such fake news and do not believe in such modified photos.

Call to action | Points to remember

• Do not forward anything and everything you receive, check if it is true and factually correct.
• Stay away from whatsapp groups which spread hatred and false information.
• You can't win an online argument with idiots/stupids so don't fall to their level of stupidity.
• Be sensitive towards the people in your network, encourage healthy/happy/motivational information exchange.
• Be diligent in what information you consume and share with your network.

This article is part of my self-imposed 7 day writing challenge.