Outlook English - Print Subscribers Copy Outlook English, 18 June 2018

U NT RUTH PREVAILS ubious operators and sent to the city’s d eateries. Amid an outrage, police identi- fied and arrested one of the kingpins, a man named Bishu, who is now being called “mangsho (meat) Bishu”. Though some of the allegations were true, the distribution of such meat was limited. But that did not stop huge numbers of consumers from boycotting chicken and meat. Abdur Rezzak Mollah, West Bengal minister in charge of the department of food processing indus- tries, said that while the rumours could indeed be based on some real occur- rences, the magnitude of public panic or outrage was far overplayed. “No one can claim that illegal busi- nesses, including those which are involved in fake food production, are not burgeoning not just in West Bengal or the rest of the country but across the world,” says Rezzak. “However, to allow these stray incidents to have such an impact as to cripple normal life is a matter of concern.” Rezzak does not just hold fake news sites on social media responsible for spreading paranoia but even mainstream media , which shows news without checking the sources. B EVERAGES including colas of multinational brands have been at the receiving end of numerous smear campaigns, allegedly by rival companies. Though the health hazards of aerated drinks are widely accepted, a recent video which went viral on WhatsApp showed two popular drinks using “bathroom-cleaning chemicals” as an ingredient. The video sparked panic among a section of consumers. The rumour was eventually contained, but not before it could do some damage. Over the last few years, rumours and fake news with political and religious colour have been circulating almost on a daily basis, pitting communities or caste groups against each other. Such has been the menace that the govern- ment is now contemplating stricter laws to clamp down on fake news. In India, which is reportedly one of the world’s biggest WhatsApp’s markets, the spread of rumour viruses is far reaching and it seems to be mutating, appearing cease- lessly in various avatars. In the latest instance, it has sprung up around the Nipah virus which has claimed several lives in Kerala. When the disease struck the state late in May, 30 OUTLOOK 18 June 2018 HYDERABAD Police chief after the recent l ynchings, asks people not to believe in social media rumours MEMORIES OF HAZE Bangalore 2012 This was one of the early episodes of chaos induced through social media. Messages claiming that people, largely students, from the Northeast were being targeted in Bangalore by locals were circulated via social media, still at a somewhat nascent stage. What followed was a mass exodus attempt by people from Northeastern states with thousands rushing to the railway station to flee the virtually created hostile vibe. Muzaffarnagar 2013 The main spark of the 2013 communal riots in Muzzafarnagar was a stray WhatsApp video. The video, most likely from a remote area of Pakistan, showed a mob brutally beating two men. It was shared widely to spread anger against a community. The state government had to intervene and clear the air around the falsely attributed video, but the venom had been spread by then. Jharkhand 2017 Last year, another WhatsApp scare around ‘child-kidnapping’ in Jharkhand resulted in the lynching of seven people. a fresh round of scare-mongering infected the Internet. The initial onslaught of advisory messages forbid the public from partaking of ripe fruits which could have been bitten by bats, which were initially thought to be the carriers of the virus, along with pigs. But at a national level, the messages soon became more offensive, advocating as they did, the ostracisation of Kerala and its residents. The state administration had to issue reassurances that the outbreak had been contained and managed to dispel fears. Within Kerala itself, another cause for concern for the administration were the hate rumours that were flooding the inboxes of the state’s users—that migrant workers from Bangladesh and other states had brought the Nipah virus to the state. Worried that its 40-lakh migrant labour workforce would be targeted, the administration had to step in to dispel the xenophobic myths. This it is not the first time that Kerala’s migrant labour force had been the sub- ject of rumours. In October 2017, hun- dreds of migrant labourers fled Kerala when rumours floated that their lives were in danger. Fake messages circu- lated on WhatsApp said that a m igrant labourer from West Bengal was beaten to death in the state while others said that Hindi-speaking people were being attacked by locals. That was enough for this floating, vulnerable population to panic and an exodus began. Newspapers reports say that many of the labourers didn’t even c ollect their wages, they just fled the state without informing their employers. Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan had to step in to condemn the rumours. Vijayan called the rumour mongers “mad” for spreading the cruel messages. His choice of word was not without a reason. When Kerala was in the vortex of a crisis after Cyclone Ockhi grazed the coast last year, another rumour hit. Hundreds of fishermen out at sea had gone missing. As the state struggled with the rescue efforts, a WhatsApp message claimed that nearly 60 fisher- men were rescued by a Japanese mer- chant ship that was heading towards Vizhinjam port. As the state rejoiced following the news, relatives of the missing fishermen took taxis and rushed to the port to receive them while ambulances were at the ready to rush the rescued to the hospital. But there was no Japanese ship nor any rescued fishermen at the port, causing anger among the relatives and huge embar- rassment to the state government. Even the district collector of Thiruvanan- thapuram and the fisheries minister were taken in by the fake messages. O

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