Types of fake news: A twist in the tale

In October 2017, a story of a Hindu man marrying a female rat claiming it to be the reincarnation of his wife who died in a car accident, went viral. The story was shared so many times that it ultimately garnered 55,000 Facebook likes and 400 retweets.

An investigation by BOOM, the fake news debunking website, revealed that the story was the handiwork of notorious serial fake news offender World News Daily Report (WNDR), which had fabricated the entire story. WNDR's disclaimer brushed it off as a satire to peddle fake news. It said that the intention was not to harm but to entertain people.

While in this case, the only casualties were the groom, who was left red-faced with embarrassment, and his new bride, left red-faced with anger, it is not always so.

Based on the origins and reasons for peddling false information, fake news can be divided into four broad categories ranging from slyly facetious where the context is tweaked to lampoon someone, to downright false where it seeks to manipulate content and often cause harm. While it may be easy to dismiss the former as "just a prank", it is nonetheless safe to say that any kind of fake news seeks to deceive, often with little connection to truth at its kernel.

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When news of the government appointing Sachin Tendulkar as the petroleum minister to ensure petrol prices did not touch Rs 100 first hit the wires, it spread rapidly among his delighted fans, that it till someone realised that a site called fakingnews.com had pulled a fast one on them.

But not everything is parody or harmless fun. The second type of fake news can be prejudiced or bigoted enough to incite anger or resentment in a particular community. This type of fake news uses false context to drive home the point. An example of this is the video that went viral in 2017 showing Indian Muslims celebrating India's loss to Pakistan in a match in Champions Trophy. While the video of the celebrations was true, the context was not; it was shot in Pakistan showing Pakistani Muslims celebrating after a win.

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Another example of this would be the photograph that was widely circulated in late 2016 which showed Jawaharlal Nehru gazing appreciatively at a troupe of vaudeville chorus girls. The accompanying text, derogatory about the former prime minister, shocked viewers who got it on their social media. The picture was of course false and his image had been photoshopped into the original picture of the chorus girls to create chicanery.

Then there is another kind of fake news which uses careless and half-baked reporting to drive home a point. It makes use of misleading content to deliberately distort the actual facts, quite often resulting in a public uproar.

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The Combiflam drug imbroglio in 2017 is an example of this. A slew of tweets back then had warned patients that taking the pill would lead to their deaths. What was missing from the message was the full story. Turns out, it was a completely exaggerated account based on a story from 2015 when certain batches of the medicine were recalled from the market by the drugmaker Sanofi India as being substandard. Last year, mischief makers decided to revive an old story in a new bottle prescribed to create panic in an unsuspecting public.

But by far the most dangerous type of fake news makes use of fabricated or manipulated content. This can range from being completely false to pure propaganda.

In 2017, as the anti-Rohingya rhetoric on social media in India grew, fake narratives were spun around photographs of children as part of a divisive propaganda. One picture tried to pass off the image of a sick child in Brazil suffering from liver and spleen problems, as that of a pregnant Rohingya refugee girl at a United Nation clinic. Pictures like hers, with inflammatory text and fake images, were released from both sides to muddy public opinion about the conflict and stir up religious bigotry.

In similar instances, the biggest danger of fake news comes when false statements calling for azaadi (freedom) for Kashmir are attributed to a public and influential figure like author Arundhati Roy. While the statements are entirely fabricated, they not only put the life of the supposed 'source' in danger but also divide people along religious lines.

In the case of the man marrying the rat, it estranged him briefly from his irate bride. In the case of maliciously fabricated content, it can divide communities — or a continent.

Writer is an author, blogger and journalist