Fake news is no longer a phenomenon that happens to others in different countries. It is very much a reality for Indians.
About half of Indians admitted that they believed a fake story, only to discover later that it was a fraudulent piece of information and a majority confessed that they regularly see fake news. These findings are a part of the series of a global survey of 27 countries by market research company Ipsos on misperceptions of social realities.
Parijat Chakraborty, Executive Director, Public Affairs calls it a dangerous era. He says, "The menace of fake news is much more dangerous because we have an in-built tendency to think that we're better at spotting lies and understanding reality than other people. This pushes us to think that fake news, filter bubbles and post-truth are other people's problems, not ours. But the results of the survey show that these are a real concern for many people."
According to the survey, 70 per cent of Indians believe that they can tell real news from fake news, and less number of Indians think (56%) that the average Indian can tell the difference between the two -- having less faith in the average person.
When it comes to fake news, 72 per cent Indians profess to have seen news stories by media organisations saying something that wasn't true, the survey findings say.
Interestingly, Indians also interpret fake news in different ways. While 55 per cent Indians say fake news are stories where the news outlets or politicians only pick up facts that support their side of the argument; 53 per cent say fake news are stories where the facts are wrong; 36 per cent Indians feel it is a term politicians and the media use to discredit news they don't agree with.
The bigger concern here is the reason behind these misperceptions. Indians feel there are multifarious factors for misinterpreting the facts wrongly about the country.
The survey findings show that 56 per cent blame politicians for misleading people; 47 per cent believe that it is the media that is misleading people; 44 per cent feel social media is the culprit for people's lopsided views; 43 per cent Indians think people per se are biased in their view of the world and tend to focus on negative things -- they think that things are getting worse or sometimes they generalise from their own experience; 25 per cent Indians blame it on the figures being wrong and exonerate people's views for it; and 21 per cent Indians blame it on the inherent discomfort with numbers, that people have, which warps the estimates.