Online misinformation: A menace to be fought

The world is smaller than ever before. It only takes seconds to transfer data from one corner of the world to another. Though Bangladesh ranks 137th among 139 countries in internet speed, the netizens are reluctant to lag when it comes to their social media presence. 

The rising number of social media users has largely contributed to the increased use of the internet. Uploading content on the web is no longer an abstruse matter, anyone can post and share a piece of text, image, video, or audio.

Contents from unfiltered or unverified sources, as we call them UGC (User Generated Contents), made the process of journalism easier. But it has its loopholes as well. Some people are taking advantage of these loopholes and are exploiting the cyber world. 

TBS Illustration.

The dark side of this phenomenon manifested in its worst form during the Covid-19 pandemic. Since the beginning of the pandemic, misinformation regarding the origin of the virus, usage of masks and eventually the efficacy of vaccines have been circulated online, particularly on social media. 

Misinformation has its toll on human society, whether it's national security or social harmony. Last October, I received a phone call to verify the claimed incident of a Hindu girl raped in Hajiganj, Chandpur. Social media, mainly Facebook, were being flooded with a post that a Hindu girl has been 'raped' by Muslim men. 

Despite being on a short holiday tour to Panchagarh, it became an issue of paramount significance to me as religious unrest was prevailing in the country centring on the alleged 'desecration' of the Holy Quran in a temple in Cumilla.

After multiple searches online, I contacted two local journalists along with the law enforcement agency but found no evidence of rape. Even a Hindu community leader denied the claim of such an incident. After all, the social media posts did not reveal any detail of the claimed incident, neither any name of the accused nor any village.

Though the claim was false, the damage had been done. The Twitter users in India were aggrieved by the 'news' and there were tweets with verbal attacks on Bangladesh and Indian High Commission for not taking stern action against the perpetrators.

That is not to say that religious violence does not exist in Bangladesh. But when fake news spreads like wildfire, it brings with it a threat to human lives. Seemingly innocent people can resort to violence when exposed to such provocative news designed to hurt their delicate sensibilities. On a macro level, these misinformation campaigns can adversely affect national security interests and diplomatic relations between countries.

For instance, another video circulated on social media claimed that Muslim female students are being tortured in India by extreme Hindus. But AFP Fact Check found that the video clip was originally from Sri Lanka and it shows students throwing water at each other during an initiation event at a university in Sri Lanka. 

Financial benefits also contribute to the spread of misinformation online. Some online portals post reports with clickbait headlines just to lure the target group. 

Misinformation threatens individual security as well. According to a recent report of AFP Fact Check, photos of a student were shared in Bangladesh claiming that she was not a student and she infiltrated the road safety movement in Dhaka. But AFP procured the documents of her studentship in a college in Khilgaon. 

During civil or military unrest, photos and videos are circulated within hours to misrepresent different events. The present Ukraine crisis is no exception. AFP Fact Check debunked more than a hundred such claims in different languages in different corners of the world.  

The people instrumental in spreading misinformation tend to choose the issues of religion, health and politics largely. In the Indian subcontinent, religion plays a sensitive role in social structure and there exist some prejudices as well. Hence, whenever someone sees content online aligning with his thoughts or prejudices, they jump on the bandwagon believing this and bring others in by sharing the news with them. This works as the main mechanism behind the circulation of misinformation. The catalysts use this inclination of general people to infiltrate their contents.    

The mass media (both traditional and social media) cannot condone their responsibility to fight misinformation. The traditional news outlets should ensure the veracity of reports, especially the desk reports. They can entrust some employees solely for this verifying purpose. 

The social media platforms and the tech giants must come to a common ground and formulate a plan of action to filter false, partly false and misleading content. Though fact-checkers are doing this task for quite some time, in collaboration with social media giants like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Twitter. In a recent move, fact-checkers around the world urged the video streaming platform YouTube to take necessary steps to combat misinformation as it's becoming a breeding ground for actors to spread misinformation.  

The netizens also have some responsibilities. In today's world, every content that appears on our screen is not a fact. We should cross-check the authenticity every single time, especially before sharing with others. 

Technology made this job easier as a single right-click on your computer mouse can track the source of an image and can tell you whether it's circulated before with any other event. While cross-checking a news report or a piece of information, a single keyword search on search engines is useful enough to present the details before you.

At present three fact-checking organisations are working in collaboration with Facebook to combat misinformation, and these are AFP Fact Check, BOOM Bangladesh and Fact Watch. Some other independent organisations are working in this field as well. AFP alone is working with Facebook in more than 80 countries in 24 languages. 

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.