Covid-19 Pandemic Has Aided the Growth of Fake News : Pratik Sinha
By Ranit Sarkar Kolkata : Fake news has exponentially grown ever since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, said ace fake news buster Pratik Sinha while speaking during the final day of #MediaNext2020, which focused on Busting False News. #MediaNext 2020 is being organized by the Kolkata-based Adamas University in partnership with Sharda University, Birla Global
By Ranit Sarkar
Kolkata : Fake news has exponentially grown ever since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, said ace fake news buster Pratik Sinha while speaking during the final day of #MediaNext2020, which focused on Busting False News.
#MediaNext 2020 is being organized by the Kolkata-based Adamas University in partnership with Sharda University, Birla Global University, DME, AIMEC, Lok Samvad Sansthan, Exchange4media, ABP Education and IndiaReal.in, The online conclave was organized for a period of 10 days from June 1, 2020 to June 10, 2020. Each day of the conclave focused on one of the major domains in the field of Media and Entertainment industry and the impact of Coronavirus outbreak on that specific domain.
Pratik Sinha is the Co-founder and Editor of #AltNews. Alt News is one of the best non-profit fact-checking websites in India. He is also a former software engineer and he earlier worked with multiple technology companies. He got inspiration from his activist parents to expose fake news. He is a member of the Jan Sangharsh Manch, which was founded by his father Mukul Sinha. During the initial part of 2013, he had followed the rise of fake or false news. In 2016, he started the website after realizing the impact of social media, when in Gujarat four Dalit boys were beaten for skinning a dead cow.
Sinha started his talk by emphasising how the issue of misleading and fake news has increased in the last three months. He also stated that the issue of misinformation is not new but the pandemic has taken the misinformation scenario to another level.
He further stated that there is a circle of misinformation and it harps on issues that attract people’s emotions such as fear, anger, hatred etc.
Pratik said, “Those who create misinformation target a specific psychological profile.” He went to the extent of deliberating the disastrous impact of fake news. One of the examples that he took was the congregation of migrant workers at Bandra Railway Station during the lockdown period on the basis of a piece of information that said that trains were going to run from that given day. As can be understood, it took some doing to convince the crowd that the information was faulty. Similarly, Pratik took many other examples to show the impact of fake information.
Pratik said, “One of the characteristics of fake news is the fact they seem clickbait and grab eyeballs.” He added that fake news is more dangerous as we are in the middle of a huge humanitarian crisis. Pratik said that fake news at times impact the entire nation and at other times impact only a certain geographical area.
Pratik took an example of a fake piece of information that emanated from the government coffers itself. It was mentioned in a central government advisory that Arsenic Album 30, a homeopathic drug, can prevent Covid-19. There was no scientific study that verified this information and yet it spread like wildfire because it was backed by a government advisory.
In yet another scathing example, Pratik took the example of how Indian Muslims were targeted throughout the country after the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi through the circulation of a number of false information about Muslims intentionally spreading Covid-19. In fact, Alt News busted a series of news items that were shifting the blame on the Muslim community for spreading the disease in the country.
He added people wilfully produce fake news because they know that when people are vulnerable in terms of emotions, they are more likely to consume fake news.
In a Muslim dominated area in Indore, two medical workers were attacked because of a rumour that went viral in that area. The rumour was that medical workers were only quarantining the Muslims.
He added, “The fear about kidnapping child and selling their organs has caused people to come on roads and start killing people”.
“As the pandemic started in China and spread throughout the world, many rumours were also spreading”, he said. One of the rumours was that the Chinese police was killing Covid-19 patients and some people Tweeted it by claiming it to be from ‘reliable source’.
He quoted, “In India the misinformation has been used in a much organised manner to set political narrative”.
Pratik ended the discourse by revealing that the Alt News team is coming up with a book on the techniques to check facts and the online version of the book will be free to read.
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