The rise of social media and 24x7 connectivity have been good for humankind. Or has itIJ
It is rather surprising when a newsperson goes out and interacts with members of the public and speaks to them about current affairs. Surprise is not that the people are informed about events, but the quality of information. The amount of misinformation and downright false information that is out in the public domain is not just depressing but potentially dangerous. This is not about false equivalences and whataboutery that has become the hallmark of commentary on social media by ‘influencers’ from all sides but the spread of factually incorrect information and mislabeled pictures and videos with a deliberate aim to inflame tensions. And while we should acknowledge the problem has become endemic in India, it is a global problem and people like Mark Zuckerberg, the baby-faced billionaire Chief Executive of Facebook, have enabled the problem to grow. And before one ‘side’ of the rather ambiguous political spectrum points fingers at the other blaming ‘them’ for ‘fake news’; this problem spreads across political viewpoints, so much so that sites have sprung up to debunk fake trends on social media. However, these sites, who ostensibly debunk fake news, have been for the large part unable, and rightly so, accusations of being biased towards one side or another. Since there is no regulation for what can be said online and unlike the Print media, there is no Press Council as a regulatory and redressal body — social media has become a sort of ‘wild west’. But worse still there are instant messaging applications such as WhatsApp, which allow users to blast off thousands of messages with disturbing images or videos in an instant, which, given how easily inflamed passions get in today’s age, could easily spark off a riot, the Rohingya issue being misused by those wanting to give them asylum and those who want them out alike. While social media like Facebook and Twitter can be ostensibly monitored and news censored or even deleted off the Internet, despite the protestations of free-speech apologists, fake news, which more often than not doubles up as hate speech, has to be combated.
Technology firms such as Zuckerberg’s have to take the lead here, as does Google. These firms enabled purveyors of fake news and misinformation to dabble in the democratic process and impact elections. But they even managed to make a pretty penny doing so from web-based advertising, which is enough for a teenager sitting in a room running the site. Whereas the voracious appetite of Facebook and Google and their desire to gobble up three-quarters of the revenue from the website as well as extortionists dabbling in ‘ad-blocking’ software have weakened traditional sources of news media by hitting them financially. Technology have had a free ride and made billions of dollars from fake news and misinformation, it is time the Indian Government and others across the world hold them to account.