Sir — This refers to the article, “Fake news: A social monster” (June 6) by Navneet Anand. Since there are no regulations on social media and after Section 66A of the Information Technology Act 2000 became redundant, social media is now a platform that is free to raise any concern.
In today’s society, most of the youth depend on social media for news. Due to this, people can be influenced very easily. One of the main reasons why or how fake news spreads is because of over sharing by the consumers. The content of a fake news is also remarkable in the sense that it always targets topics that sound reasonable to a lot of people.
However, if found guilty of publishing fake news, the publisher can be held liable under Section 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code.
Therefore, one needs to be careful while spreading messages that are not based on credible sources, especially in situations where such news can lead to incidents of communal chaos and wreak havoc.