Alongside the economic and medical impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak, India is also concurrently battling a surge in misinformation and disinformation related to the pandemic. To tackle this, the Indian government adopted a two-pronged approach of collaborating with social media platforms to identify and eradicate the spread of false information and using existing laws to arrest disseminators of such content. However, will these measures be enough to curb the exponentially increasing fake content being spread across several digital platforms?
It must be said that India is not the sole victim of the issue of fake news. In fact, it occupies the minds of authorities and public health officials across the globe. Acknowledging the severity of the issue, the Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned of the “infodemic” of fake news that is spreading “faster and more easily than [the COVID-19] virus”. The WHO is also working with several online platforms–including Facebook, Google, Twitter, and YouTube–to counter the increasing false information on their platforms.
The growing misinformation has already caused tangible and severe harm in India. On April 14, a rumour propagated by local political leader Vinay Dubey that special trains had been arranged by the Indian Railways to help transport migrant workers back home was alleged to be a prime cause behind thousands assembling at Bandra station in Mumbai. Dubey started a campaign titled “Chalo Ghar Ki Ore” (let’s go home), asking Mumbai’s stranded migrant workers–mainly from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Rajasthan–to assemble. The assembly outside the station violated the ‘social-distancing’ policy in place across India and raised concern about its impact on the rising number of COVID-19 positive cases in Mumbai.
Another incident that caused concern was the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in New Delhi. As the news about the increasing number of COVID-19 cases linked to the event spread, so did the misinformation and disinformation surrounding the event. Fact-checkers claim that there was a barrage of fake news targeting Muslims following the death of six attendees of the event. Alarmingly, false information was propagated by several media houses too. For instance, a headline on Sudarshan News read, “Save the country from corona jihad.” Further, while Times Now announced, “Yes Markas spiked numbers” and “Ban Taliban Tablighi, chorus grows”, while Arnab Goswami from Republic TV called the gathering a “deliberate” scheme to undermine the country. During this period, hashtags such as #CoronaJihad and #NizamuddinIdiot were used to spread hate speech on the issue. Such information led to several instances of abuse, assault, and violence against Muslims across the country. While the gathering was indeed ill-advised and merits scrutiny and criticism, there has been an unwarranted and disproportionate level of hatred spewed at all Muslims, the wide majority of whom do not condone, and did not attend, the event. Moreover, it is falsely being held as uniquely responsible for the rise in COVID-19 cases in India.
Indian authorities, recognising the severity of the issue, are making several efforts to curb the spread of fake news. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology urged social media platforms to spread awareness, disable or remove such content, and promote the dissemination of authentic information relating to the outbreak. Further, the Ministry of Home Affairs set up a team–headed by the Internet and Broadcasting Secretary, Ravi Mittal–to disseminate verified information and raise awareness about the need for the public to be more sceptical of the information that they consume. The group will oversee “proper information dissemination through regular press conferences, statements and advisories, and positive articles in the media”. Furthermore, the Ministry of Health set up the “My Gov Corona Helpdesk” to respond to queries about the pandemic.
However, these measures are likely to be insufficient in tackling the overwhelming volume of misinformation being peddled. According to Guy Rosen, Facebook’s VP for Integrity, even though flagged content is 95% less likely to be viewed by users, it is impossible to flag all misinformation due to the sheer quantity and virality of such content. Fact-checkers say that even though misinformation and fake news is easy to debunk and disprove, the amount of content being circulated makes it impossible to flag and take down all such posts. Shachi Sutaria, a fact-checker who focusses on science and health with Boom, said that “[t]he problem with fake news is that its virality is way faster than its debunking. Often despite debunking a piece of fake news, we see that the same claim has emerged again”. Moreover, it may have already gained traction and spread across multiple platforms by the time it is taken down.
Despite the difficulty of combatting this infodemic, several Indian states are witnessing a rise in FIRs and arrests under the Indian Penal Code, 1860, the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 and the Information Technology Act, 2000. For example, the cyber-wing of the Maharashtra state police is taking stringent action against users who are creating and promoting misinformation. According to an official, along with 37 arrests and 188 FIRs under the Indian Penal Code and the Epidemic Diseases Act, the police issued 55 “takedown” notices. Arrests for spreading false information were also made in Mizoram, Odisha, and Rajasthan. According to the Agence-France Presse, over 100 people have been arrested for such content.
However, while authorities may be able to arrest a few of these perpetrators, the virality of such content makes it difficult for them to significantly tackle the problem. This is not an indictment of the policies themselves, but a reflection of the dangers of social media and greater interconnectedness. Moreover, this holds true across borders, regardless of the style of governance. For instance, despite the stringent policy of the Chinese government in restricting communication to target fake news, the circulation of misinformation remained unaffected. Rasmus Nielsen, the director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford, said that “China has been extraordinarily draconian in restricting citizens' communication and cracking down on voices, and yet there is plenty of misinformation in circulation”.
The founder and editor of Alt News, Pratik Sinha, also expressed concern about the increasing arrests being made to counter the spread of fake news. He said that, even though the information is spread by thousands, merely two or three people are arrested. However, since it is nearly impossible to find the creator of the false information, new content keeps coming into circulation.
During the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, the spread of misinformation has tested Indian authorities repeatedly by often demeaning their efforts and policies. Apart from causing people to violate the lockdown and social-distancing policies, the growing false information has also stirred communal tensions. A lack of public awareness of the virus makes the Indian public highly vulnerable to this surge in misinformation and disinformation. The sheer virality and volume of such content, alongside the anonymity of those producing it, renders the current strategy of making largely symbolic arrests futile. Therefore, with a highly susceptible population that appears unwilling to do its due diligence and fact-check the information it consumes, India risks becoming a victim of both a pandemic and an infodemic, the economic, medical, and societal impacts of which may become too great to bear.
Image Source: Politico
