Misinformation and Fake News

Increase in internet penetration and consequent access to social media has led to widespread usage of internet for gathering information. On the flip side however, this reliance on social media for information has led to an increase in spread of misinformation and fake news.

Over the past six years, this risk of misinformation has surfaced repeatedly, both within domestic and international contexts of global events such as the Brexit vote, the US elections (2016 and 2021), and the COVID-19 pandemic, all providing opportunities for it’s perpetuation, often leading to drastic consequences.

Misinformation refers to the unintentional sharing of inaccurate and misleading information.

Fake News is the intentional falsification and fabrication of newsbased information in order to harm or deceive people.15

Kishan is a 57 year old farmer in Rajasthan’s Banswara district. He uses his phone to access news and information to stay updated on current affairs in the country.

Last year, Kishan and his friends received multiple WhatsApp forwards questioning the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine. Believing these messages, they decided not to take the vaccine. Kishan ended up contracting the virus and had to be hospitalised post a severe infection.

This has impacted Kishan’s health as well as his finances.

Over the past six years, the system’s response to misinformation and fake news has evolved from the nascent to the emerging stage. There is a growing recognition of misinformation and fake news online, globally and in India. This has led to growth of regulatory solutions and private sector solutions for fact-checking.

2016 status: There was limited awareness of the role of social media in misinformation. There were no solutions to combat misinformation, however, the experts had been talking about the risk.

2022: There is a widespread awareness and media coverage. While private and public sector solutions have come up to combat misinformation and fake news, there is no legal consensus on definitions and approach to resolve this risk fully.

A proposal to map real identities to social media accounts was discussed during the proceedings.16

Facebook created a factchecking network

This included onboarding a cohort of fact checkers, such as BOOM, Factly, Newsmobile, AFP, and others as partners.17 18

I&B ministry created a FACT check module

The module aimed to monitor online news sources and publicly available social media posts.19

Media scrutiny towards misinformation has increased, resulting in emergence of several fact-checking initiatives in mainstream media

Social media platforms have adopted tech-led solutions to combat misinformation

In 2016, fact checking was considered a niche activity across the media industry. Estimates suggest that there were only three fact-checking initiatives in India in 2018. This number has increased to over ten in 2023. Many leading media houses such as Quint, The Print, India Today also have their own factchecking groups now.21

Since 2016, solutions such as WhatsApp’s ‘forward’ feature which shows that the content is not generated from the sender and Twitter’s ‘manipulated media’ tag have sprung up.22 23 There are also partnerships between social media platforms and fact-checking startups such as Boom for validating the content authenticity.

Intermediary Rules and Grievance Redressal Committee were introduced Guidelines were implemented in 2021 to regulate social media intermediaries and digital media platforms with additional avenues for complaint redressal being introduced in 2023.20

Emergence of targeted regulations to combat misinformation

In 2016, there was no specific regulation targeting misinformation. The introduction of IT Intermediary Rules in 2021 and amendments since then mandate tracing of first originator, measures to ensure compliance with rules and provide additional modes for grievance redressal. While these continue to be discussed, they indicate a growing legislative focus on misinformation.24