OPINION Fake news can be costly and deadly

ONE RECENT Wednesday, monsoon rains lashed office windows in Mumbai. Inside, screens lit up with messages announcing the arrival of Cyclone Phyan.

Employees of a start-up called Little Black Book, an online city guide, started panicking. Some went home early after receiving messages on their phones that roads were being closed. Others passed the message on to loved ones in Phyan’s path.

Jayati Bhola, a 24-year-old writer at Little Black Book, was organising a charity music show that evening and feared that the warning might put off her guests. She quickly checked the weather online and then sent around a message: “We’re still on guys! Rain or Shine.”

As it turns out, Cyclone Phyan never came to Mumbai that day, September 20. In fact, it had already happened – eight years earlier, 2 253km away, in Sri Lanka.

“That rumour about the cyclone has been going around for years,” said Pankaj Jain, founder of SMXHoaxSlayer.com, a website that fact-checks circulating rumours on social media in India.

In India, a nation with 355 million internet users, false news stories have become a part of everyday life, exacerbating weather crises, increasing violence between castes and religions, and even affecting matters of public health.

Last week, newspapers in India carried full-page advertisements by Facebook that explained how to spot false news. Minister Rajnath Singh, who oversees home affairs, addressed members of the armed border forces in New Delhi, advising them not to believe everything on social media.

Much of India’s false news is spread through WhatsApp, a messaging app.

Some stories exacerbate India’s rising religious and caste tensions. This week, for instance, images purportedly showing attacks against Hindus by “Rohingya Islamic terrorists” in Burma circulated on social media in India, stoking hatred in Hindu-majority India against Muslim Rohingya.

The rumours have resulted in a small industry of fact-checkers who are setting up websites to debunk myths circulating online. The fact-checkers come from various backgrounds – some are former journalists, others are software geeks, and some are just citizens.

Many fake news stories appeared to support India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and its right-wing Hindu nationalist agenda, said Jency Jacob, managing editor for boomlive.in, a fact-checking website.

“If we don’t do something, it will be too late,” Jacob said. “Political parties would love to use this for their own benefit, and we need to intervene.”

The scrutiny has led to some triumphs. Ministers have deleted misleading tweets and posts after being fact-checked online.

India’s first-time users are particularly susceptible to rumours on social media websites, Jacob said.

“In India, these forwards take on a life of their own,” he said, referring to chain messages on social media. – The Washington Post