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There is an urgent need to get rid of the menace that is fake news on social media . It’s an unhealthy trend with potential to pull down mankind. People with vested interests are indulging in such practices to serve their selfish purposes. Fake news articles are often used to achieve various ulterior goals including disturbing communal amity, altering social fabric, destroying peace, etc. It becomes further dangerous when the custodians of free speech and liberty, especially the media, use it to drive home their points. This is why social media, which has effectively brought geographical distance between continents and its countries to a naught and has brought people from various parts of the globe much closer, is being regarded as a bane rather than a boon. Clearly, the advancement of Information Technology these days is largely being used against the interests of mankind and time has come now to take a vow against the misuse of such technological advancement.
Now, what constitutes fake news? In general, circulation of any wrong information instigating people against each other can be termed as fake news. For example, the scene of a feature film was circulated through social media claiming it as an incident of a riot scene that took place somewhere in the country. Similarly, the image of the son of a renowned Bengali film director has gone viral as the photograph of the new-born baby of Indian cricket captain Virat Kohli and his actress wife Anushka Sharma. Both incidents were meant to hoodwink the people; make them believe in something contrary to reality. In the first instance, the wrong picture was distributed to flare up communal tensions and in the second it was meant to spread a lie that privacy of the star couple has finally been breached.
The circulation of fake news has touched a new height during the ongoing Farmers’ agitation. On January 26, when the farmers undertook a tractor rally demanding that the three new farm laws be repealed, social media was flooded with various fake news. It was widely circulated that an agitating farmer died due to police firing. But the fact remains that the farmer unfortunately died as his tractor got overturned after hitting a barrier. Even the post-mortem report has confirmed it. But, on social media the unfortunate agitator is still being described as a martyr who had fallen victim to the state's brutality. Clearly, the intention behind spreading such fake news was to garner sympathy of the people towards the farmers, who were at the receiving end after some of them indulged in large-scale violence in Delhi on Republic Day. While, no restrictions should be imposed on free speech as that will damage the very foundation of society; at the same time, no one should be allowed to spread lies. In wake of the January 26 incident, Twitter has suspended a sizeable number of accounts. Let’s hope, the action taken by Twitter will help immensely in our fight against fake news and other platforms will follow suit.