Media expert and senior journalist Prashant Tandon expressed grave concern over the negative impact of fake news on the people, society and the country. He said it is damaging the social fabric and instilling fear in the mind of people. It is making very deep psychological impact on the people.
He was speaking on ‘In the era of Fake News’ at a public meeting at Jamaat-e-Islami headquarters in New Delhi on 30 October.
“Fake news is instilling fear in our minds through different ways and damaging the social fabric. And the biggest problem is that it is diverting attention from the real issues. During the election, we review the work and performance of the government so that we can elect it on the basis of their performance. If we review the performance of the government on the basis of fake news and make wrong opinion about the government and parties, it damages the democracy. Our opinion is based on lies. It is said that lies have no legs but the technology provided it legs to spread across the world. We must understand these lies. In this era of technology, lies are being spread fast. When it comes to technology, its area becomes very vast,” Tandon said.
Tandon further said it is not only common people but politicians, ministers and public figures also fall prey to fake news. Ministers and politicians share fake news on social media without any verification. In India, Union Minister Piyush Goel allegedly shared a photo of Russian city on the twitter as Indian city in order to show that his government made that city like this. Later, it was exposed and he retracted that. In the US, the election campaign of present President Donald Trump was very much based on fake news. Even the Facebook was spreading fake news in support of Trump. Former President Barack Obama has to say that Facebook did wrong with them by trending fake news. Later, the Facebook has to make changes in its staff members working with US Facebook.
The learned speaker further pointed out some signs of fake news. Fake news can be identified with little common sense. It has very screaming headlines and unauthentic URL in its web address. The facts which are mentioned in the fake news are generally wrong and next to impossible. It always incites people to do wrong things such as violence and hatred and it is written in the fake news that sold media will not tell you these facts.