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As if it wasn’t bad enough that the people are suffering world over due to the Corona virus pandemic, they now have to fight the misinformation and fake news monster as well!
As the government announces measures for the sanitization of public transport and other public places, one fake news that has emerged is that the government is sending groups of people to sanitize the homes of people. This is completely untrue. While the government has formed groups of officials to go to housing societies, it is only to gather information about people who have a history of air travel to virus affected countries. There has been no official announcement from the government about sending anyone to go and personally sanitize the homes of citizens.
With the second largest population in the world at 1.37 billion and over 560 million internet users, the country is currently suffering from a pandemic of rumour mongers who are using the internet to spread fear and panic among citizens about the Covid-19. There are people who are using the vulnerability of the people as an opportunity to loot them by posing as government officials sent to sanitize their homes of the virus.
The BBC reported, fake news on social media has led to mob violence in several countries.
On March 12, 2020, the Darjeeling police lodged a case against a woman for circulating a voice message about a guard from a well-known hotel there being admitted in the town’s nursing home. This, even when the authorities claimed to not have found any cases of the illness being found there. Later, the town police blocked 15 posts that spread misinformation about the virus with the help of a team that is keeping track of people spreading such fake messages, reported The Telegraph India.
In Rajasthan, the police arrested a health worker for spreading fake news about he number of coronavirus positive cases in the state and isolation wards that were being set up in the state to treat patients. The Mahuwa circle DSP Shankar Lal said he was arrested for his “statement conducting to public mischief”.
Odisha too, saw its first arrest due to fake news. A 32-year-old man was arrested under Sections 153 (A), 504, 505 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for spreading misinformation about the outbreak of Covid-19 in Rayagada. He had posted on his Facebook account that a man who had arrived from Kerala was infected with the virus and admitted at a district hospital, Rayagada. The police, however, found this news to be fake and will now produce the man in court.
From home remedies to news about avoiding ice creams and even Chinese food, to conspiracy theories, the Covid-19 pandemic has seen some of the weirdest fake news. While it has been somewhat easy for giants like Facebook to curb the misinformation, it is WhatsApp and its accessibility that is hurting the genuine drive of keeping citizens aware of the virus.
A fact-checking website, BOOM LIVE, has examined that an average person get at least five to six messages a day regarding the Corona virus and the problem with such messages is that it takes more time to debunk the misinformation these messages hold than to forward them on to another group of people.
While the country’s health minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan has said that the government has placed around 3,000 people under surveillance and has set up ‘rapid action’ teams to deal with events on the ground, it has also been reported by Al Jazeera that the government is now looking to send text messages to citizens with verified advisories to counteract misinformation.
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