The problem of fake news will aggravate as more users come online in India\, says Prasanto Roy

The problem of fake news will aggravate as more users come online in India, says Prasanto Roy

The Indian government has been holding social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter accountable for its role in spreading rumours and fake news.

Sonal Khetarpal        Last Updated: January 31, 2019  | 16:08 IST

There has been an unprecedented increase in the cases of mob violence and lynching deaths across the country. From January 2017 to July 2018, 33 people were killed during 69 incidents of mob violence.

The Indian government has been holding social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter accountable for its role in spreading rumours and fake news.

These platforms have a significant role to play but what is important to understand is they are not the source of the fake news, says Prasanto Kumar Roy, a technology analyst and commentator.

He explains, "With the rise of WhatsApp what has changed is the propensity to replicate and propagate with astonishing velocity any piece of information." A single message can reach millions in a short period. That kind of velocity was not possible earlier.

He adds, this is coupled with India's demographic issue. India does not just have low literacy but also low digital literacy. Many first time internet users face a digital language divide. According to a Google and KPMG report, nine out of ten new internet users between 2016 and 2021 will use internet in a local language. Most of these local language internet users consume content in the form of videos.

With this context, he says, it is easy to misrepresent a valid video or photo in a different context. In addition, fake news busters, mostly English users, might not be able to do much because the fact-checking exercise usually happens in text. "As more users come online in India, the problem of fake news will only aggravate," he says.

Moreover, these platforms can only do so much as their business model is based on encryption. However, Roy suggests, there are enough ways to track the source of the information without breaking encryption. "Digital forensics can play an important role to trace the originator of the message without breaking the encryption."

Roy was speaking at the panel discussion on 'Contours of Fake News and its impact on society' organized by Delhi-based not-for-profit legal services organisation Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC).