Quiz: What are the five ways to spot fake news?
Answer: Check the source. Read beyond (don’t get mislead by outrageous headlines). Check for trusted source. Look for supporting sources. Be cautious before you share.
That information was put out by the PIB, the Press Information Bureau. The PIB has, as mediapersons at least know, been the Government of India’s outlet for the release of official information. Its head is the Official Spokesperson of the Government of India.
Under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, it has long offered a dour, official version of the news. This comes through by way of a focus on government plans, policies, programmes, initiatives and achievements.
All fine, so far. This is also perhaps needed. This is true even if a focus on the government can often degenerate into meaning a focus on the party in power, and its prime minister (or chief minister, at the state level. There is justification for official information to be released to the citizen, and a need for it too.
But what happens when the government (and its officials) decide to overstep its brief? In the past week or so, the Supreme Court stayed the notification which sought to give legal status, and very real powers, to the Government of India’s (unfortunately named) FCU, or Fact Check Unit.
As The Indian Express has pointed out, the PIB’s Fact Check Unit has been in operation for at least the past half-decade, since 2019. You can find it on X (formerly Twitter) at PIBFactCheck. There, it does the unexceptional (and hard to criticise) job of pointing to fake news that is being circulated via the Net. It focuses on news related to the government.
Issues highlighted there include fake railway job offers; threats to cut your electricity if you don’t pay your “previous month bill” by 9 pm by “tonight”; “free” internet data offers which are too good to be true. Or even a formal-looking but fake ‘Gazette’ notification regarding the appointment of Election Commissioners.
Somewhere along the line, the PIB Fact Check also hits out against “Misinformation is being spread by @AJEnglish regarding the Citizenship Amendment Act, calling the act ‘anti-Muslim’”.
On March 21 (last Thursday), the Supreme Court stayed the Centre’s notification on the Fact Check Unit. This continues until the Bombay High Court arrives at a decision on the challenge to the amended IT Rules.
A day earlier, the Government of India had notified the FCU’s legal status. It made it mandatory for online platforms (like Facebook, or X, formerly Twitter) to take down any content that the FCU decided was “fake”. If they didn’t do so, they could not claim legal immunity against third-party content.
Labelling news as “fake” is one thing. But government employees deciding which online posts be removed takes things to a new level. As the outspoken Indian Express asked; “Can the Centre decide what is true about itself and what is not?”
To understand what a complex concept ‘fact-checking’ can be, just check out the discussion on the Wikipedia page on the same topic. There, you get a hint that all fact-checking is not neutral. What was considered as ‘fake news’ at one stage (for example, speculation that COVID-19 originated from Chinese labs) might be an acceptable thesis at a later stage.
Facebook, a giant source of “news” in today’s world, has also been criticised by both journalists and academics of undercutting fact-checkers by promoting “propaganda-linked organisations” like CheckYourFact as partners, and promoting false information sources like Breitbart and The Daily Caller on Facebook’s newsfeed.
In the US, fact-checkers pointed to the large number of lies, half-truths and false info put out by ex-President Donald Trump while in office. Still, Trump’s supporters will not concede ground, blast the “liberal” media, and come up with arguments to justify his statements.
What is interesting is that fact-checking is not new. There was a need for this amidst the sensationalist news of the 1850s and 1860s in the US.
In India, we are still to understand this issue in sufficient depth. Sometimes, fact-checking is done in-house, and prior to publication. Today, with rogue players entering the field of “news” (whose job is to muddy the field with political propaganda), one can’t assume that errors or incorrect news is caused merely by mistakes alone.
Some is plain bias. Media has taken sides and will continue to. But the arrival of tiny, new, yet influential social media players on the field opens up new possibilities altogether. The government is stepping in at this time, knowing that there is growing concern about fake news, and the damage it can inflict. But surely, picking the government servants of the PIB to undertake this role is the most unfair choice.
The PIB has long carried the reputation of being an official mouthpiece of the government. As such, it clearly lacks the credibility to play such a role. In some cases, untrue news came up from those close to the party in power. If this happens, what action could one expect from the PIB.
Coming as it does just before a crucial election, the intent of the government on this front comes naturally under a cloud.
Incidentally, kaspersky.com, the cyber-security and anti-virus site, says fake news can come by way of deliberately inaccurate stories. Sometimes, these may also contain elements of truth, while being broadly inaccurate. Click-baits, propaganda, poor quality journalism, misleading headlines, impostor content, and even parody taken as truth all come under ‘fake news’.
Besides what the PIB says above, there are other ways to identify fake news -- check the author, maintain a critical mindset, check the comments below a post, check your own biases, check whether it’s a joke, check whether the images are authentic, and use a fact-checking site (Snopes, PolitiFact, BBC Reality Check etc). Citizens can play a role in curbing the spread of fake news. Sometimes this get innocently spread too. The role played by Indian fact-checker Mohammed Zubair is simply fascinating.
This only underlines the needs for checks and balances within our electoral democracy. Oddly enough, this challenge to PIB’s fact-checking role came up from the stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra (besides the Editors’ Guild of India, and the Association of Indian Magazines). Just as well they took up what might seem like a minor issue, but certainly has implications for free speech in the world’s most populous country.
