Why Do We Share Fake News?
In the world of social media, we are all the media. We all decide what to share.
High-level representatives from all three major political parties in India cancelled their participation in a conference held by the BBC on November 12 in New Delhi. The conference unveiled the BBC’s new report on fake news in India, and kicked off a new initiative: “Beyond Fake News.” The report has already attracted a lot of attention in India, including some vehement criticism, especially from those closer to the ruling party.
The problem of fake news is global and by no means restricted to India. The South Asian republic has already surpassed the United States to claim the world’s largest number of Facebook users. India is also the biggest market for WhatsApp. Thus, Indians are engulfed in a river of information via social media, and there is no way of avoiding the whirlpools of fake news. The richest and most powerful countries have not avoided such difficulties either. Fake news and fake messages shared on social media have caused or incited violence in a few countries, including Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and also India.
Fake News, Real Identities
The wave of fake news has risen in India in recent years as it has elsewhere. The BBC report concludes that so-called fake news stories are shared more widely by accounts leaning toward the Hindu right, that is, more sympathetic toward the Hindu nationalists that now rule India. Given the tilt toward the right in the current political situation in India, the dominance of the ruling Hindu nationalist party (the BJP) and how much it has invested in social media over the last few years, this conclusion rings true.
Other conclusions from the report are less clear in their validity. The flaws of the research in my view, are that: (1) it has partially looked down at the objects of its research, assuming they should be singled out for sharing fake news because of their views; (2) it did not balance internet research with fieldwork; and, thus, (3) some of the conclusions were over-generalized, especially in an article on the BBC website that promoted the report.
The authors’ findings include an explanation that in many cases themes such as “national pride” or “Hindu power and superiority” are reasons why people share news without corroborating the information. In other words, it is claimed that many Indian netizens may share a news piece because it reinforces the confirmation bias of their own nationalist pride. There are, the authors claim, two “broad ways in which sharing of fake news happens: the first comes from relatively good intentions of honest citizens to either share as civic duty or to attempt to verify through the network. The second comes from a sense of purpose when sharing is for community and nation building or for projection of identity.” This differentiation may be superficial because it approaches the subject from the wrong direction. Cannot a Hindu extremist who shares conspiracy theories about Muslims do so because he genuinely believes he is an honest citizen fulfilling his civic duty?
While the research is based on over 1,000 Twitter profiles and 3,200 Facebook pages, it also relies on just 40 interviews with Indians on why they share what they share. First and rather obviously, there is a mammoth disproportion between the number of interviewed people and the number of analyzed virtual accounts. Second, Twitter is still not used as much in India when compared to Facebook or WhatsApp (but, as the authors explained, due to technical reasons it is easier to analyze content on Twitter than Facebook).
One thing that should be pointed out, however, is that the article on the BBC website presented the findings in a less nuanced way than the full report. The article claims that “Nationalism is a driving force behind fake news in India” and is this text that was mostly criticized, not the original report. What the report says, however, is that “political identity plays a key role in sharing of fake news, especially for those on the right. While we see multiple distinct identities emerging within the right, they are all bound by common narratives, but there is no real unified sense of a ‘left’ identity in India; instead there are micro identities (eg Tamil, Bengali, Dalit).” Thus, the report speaks about Hindu nationalism, not just nationalism. It also does not overtly call it a driving force.
This also does not mean that other political entities do not try their hands at fake news. The report does give examples of fake news that targeted the ruling party and its government. Remember: Representatives of two parties that are political rivals to the BJP in Delhi also skipped the BBC’s conference.
We Are All the Media
A chief question that the BBC researchers had asked themselves before embarking on the project was: “Why does the ordinary citizen share fake news without verification?” While an important question, it is also a bit biased. Can anybody in our information-flooded world be able to verify what and why he is sharing, even a small portion of it?
Let me use a brutal example. A few days before BBC unveiled its report, it shared – on its BBC Urdu web page – the news that Aasia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian, was allowed to leave Pakistan, where she is in danger of being attacked by Islamic radicals. At the time, I shared the BBC Urdu’s tweet. It later turned out that the information was most possibly false. Pakistan’s foreign minister denied that Bibi has left the country. I have not deleted my tweet, and the BBC Urdu has edited its news article. Now, am I a person spreading fake news? Should I be interviewed for such a report? I have shared a tweet from a reputable source, both acting in good faith, but while researching the sharing of fake news in India, disseminated incorrect information about Pakistan.
In the world of social media, we are all the media. We all decide what to share. Should we single out Indians for not verifying what they share? Should we search for India-specific reasons for this when everybody shares news without checking?
For me, what was more shocking is that in May to June of this year fake stories on child kidnappings led to a few deaths in India. In these cases, it seems, some people of a given community became exceedingly suspicious toward outsiders because of fake news and a few innocent strangers were murdered as a result. What this shows, I assume, is that there are deep social tensions in India – so much that some people may be incited to violence through rather easy means, such as fake news. Thus, fake news may not be India-specific, but it falls on a fertile ground there.
Surely, reports like the BBC’s are needed, but this particular report contained a degree of bias and a regrettable imbalance between virtual and human research. One hopes these issues are addressed as the “Beyond Fake News” project moves forward.
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Krzysztof Iwanek writes for The Diplomat’s Asia Life section.