Fake news: The facts of fiction

In the post-truth world, it might be difficult to distinguish between fact and fiction. The highway of information provided by platforms can be disruptive. The need to repeat a Goebbelsian lie is not relevant for digital platforms. You can post a visual lie and make others believe it represents the truth. Enemies of good have a field day in posting such visuals to influence, energise, destabilise, spew venom, and incite violence with impunity. They use technology to manipulate news. All this can be done under the cloak of anonymity. This is now called ‘fake news’.

One can challenge traditional beliefs and alter perceptions. Fake news is a lethal weapon to influence and embed desired perceptions within a million minds. Remember the US launching an offensive against Iraq with a lie that Saddam Hussain was in possession of weapons of mass destruction. Iraq was invaded: the invasion justified by constant repetition of unsubstantiated evidence through television channels. This led to the dismemberment of Iraq. We are witness to the havoc and its reverberations, both in Iraq and elsewhere.

Fabricating news came into focus in the US presidential elections and became a global phenomenon in 2016. Fake news saw more engagement on Facebook than it did in The New York Times, CNN or The Wall Street Journal. Breaking news on WhatsApp Groups that UNESCO had adjudged Modi as the best Prime Minister in the world turned out to be fake. Jana Gana Mana being declared the best National Anthem by UNESCO too turned out to be fake news as was clarified by UNESCO itself. The news that UNESCO declared the 2,000-rupee note as the best currency in the world was denied as untrue.

All this might be part of political propaganda and needs to be dealt with. Far more serious is fake news that ignites riots. BJP used a Gujarat riots video to show how bad the situation was in West Bengal and then ran a campaign for stigmatising the administration. To similar effect was the use of a photograph of a burnt vehicle that was taken in Gujarat 15 years ago. To use photographs from Gujarat and project them as happenings in Basirhat and then hashtag it as ‘Save Bengal’ shows the rampant misuse of social platforms to political advantage. In April, 2015, hatemongers posted a video shot in Bangladesh, as anti-Hindu violence in Bihar to instigate hatred against Muslims.

The circulation of fake news cannot be pardoned if the intent is to incite and motivate violence. It has the potential to damage our polity and endanger the equanimity which has sustained our social and political structures since Independence. If stoking of communal violence is to serve electoral outcomes and pollute innocent minds with fake news, then there is urgent need to address this phenomenon. There is a whole army on Twitter representing the forces of anarchy, ready to post such fake news for partisan ends. Electoral battles of the future, it seems, are not going to be fought by rumour-mongering on the ground or by persuasion through direct action, but on social media platforms, targeting every individual in every home.

With mobile phones in the hands of 900 million, the power of fake news has the potential to deliver outcomes based on fiction, not facts. Even more serious is the tendency of the State machinery to use fake news to extol its own virtues and achievements. The government’s claim on the floodlight lit Bangladesh border with India by using an image in 2006 by Spanish photographer Javier Oyan, of the Spain-Morocco border is evidence of possible State manipulation of truth in the future. In 2015, the Press Information Bureau tweeted a photo-shopped image of our Prime Minister visiting flood hit areas of Chennai.

Apart from government establishments, the strategy of fake news sites includes (i) misinformation, (ii) misinterpretation, (iii) maligning, (iv) manipulation, and (v) motivation. They misinform facts which do not exist, or existed in a different context altogether at a different time and different locations. These are then manipulated to misinform. The misinformation is then misinterpreted and used for maligning. The ultimate end is motivation of the human mind to fall for the agenda of the perpetrator. This unacceptable reality of the post-truth world is alarming.

This is a challenge we need to meet. What we need to communicate is truth and a society committed to it. Freedom of expression is not a commitment to expression with intent to pollute, endanger and destroy. We need both an ethical response and stringent law to deal with this aberration. It is necessary to regulate social media, but more than that, it is necessary to educate. Appropriate legislation dealing with this menace must incorporate harsh penal provisions to serve as a deterrent for those who intend to misuse these platforms.

Technology empowers, but also has the potential to diminish. Timely interventions can save democracy.

The author is a Member of the Rajya Sabha, and a senior Indian National Congress leader. Views expressed are personal.