Outlook English - Print Subscribers Copy Outlook English, 18 June 2018 | Page 28

UNTRUTH PREVAILS
PTI
Tales From The 4G Rumour Mill
Fear is trending and violence is a ping away, why does fake news make India erupt?
by Dola Mitra in Calcutta
I
T came out of nowhere—no sour­
ces cited, no eyewitness accounts,
yet it spread all over the internet
and suddenly, it was social media
breaking news: a tribal man had
been killed following an argument
with a bus conductor, who belonged
to another community. In no time, a
usually laidback Shillong was in the
grip of both fear and rage, courtesy,
innumerable WhatsApp forwards,
Facebook shares and retweets.
No one bothered to check the veracity
of the ‘news’ as angry local residents
descended on the streets, baying for the
blood of their ‘enemies’. When police
intervened, they were showered with
stones and bricks. Such was the anger
28 OUTLOOK 18 June 2018
that mobs even defied curfew and con-
tinued their rampage—pelting stones,
attacking religious places, damaging
vehicles, anything that came their way.
By now it’s known, Shillong only adds
to the list of rumour madness, a growing
trend across India. Behind the violent
bouts of anarchy are the usual suspects:
WhatApp, Facebook, Twitter—social
media platforms that can proliferate
information like never before. Platforms
that offer super-convenience, for all our
endeavours, mischief included.
Across the country, several people
have died in the recent past due to such
fake news, mischievously planted into
social media platforms by unidentified
people or groups. “Internet hoaxes are
driven by a large number of different
reasons. Individuals, groups or organi-
sations are often driven by religious
i ­ ntolerance to generate rumours about
other communities,” says P.K. Das, for-
mer officer-in-charge of Calcutta
Police’s cybercrime cell.
“Helpless rage on issues beyond their
control compels a section of people to
group themselves into mobs to take the
law into their own hands, when they feel
they cannot adequately rely on the
administration. Other compulsions
­
include revenge and even the need to
relevant in some way,” he tells Outlook.
Weeks before the Shillong violence, at
least six people, all ‘outsiders’, were
lynched in Telangana and Andhra
Pradesh by local residents, whose
mobile phones were flooded with mes-
sages about gangs of kidnappers. Some
of these messages were even circulated