An event of mass infuence and fake news is a customary amalgamation India is witnessing ever since the undocumented technological revolution influxed into the grass-root levels of Indian Society. Fallout information coming out of Social Networks can be a big threat to the society itself. The ongoing Pandemic — COVID-19 is the subject of a parallel ‘Infodemic’ whose main content contributors are the quasi-woke people with their hands on a mobile phone and an ever-tickling craving to educate the proximal fellow beings with related information irrespective of its credibility.
Hundreds of Whatsapp forwards about
‘Corona virus’ are being circulated in this global emergency which is often seen affecting people in a way which imparts from concepts like Common sense and basic scientifc temperament of society at large. Following are some such fake news elements which have made the society act in a way it should not have while reacting to an emergency of this intensity.
Contagion horror of Delhi’s Anand Vihar via Whatsapp forwards:
(Translation:“Importantinformation—IfanyofyouracquaintancefromUttarPradeshisstuckin DelhithentheUttarPradeshgovernmenthasarrangedtheTransportforthem.Buseswillbe availablefromAnandViharBusTerminal…”)
Days after Prime Minister Modi announced a nationwide lock down to contain the coronavirus pandemic, on Saturday, 28th March, 2019 — the sudden in-flux of thousands of migrant workers at Anand Vihar Bus Terminal near Delhi-UP border terrified the nation’s heartland which continues to live under a constant shadow of rapid transmission of a contagion called CoVID-19.
It all started with Whatsapp forwards making way to people’s smartphones which reckoned that ‘Buses will be available from Anand Vihar Bus Terminal’ for the people wishing to leave for their native places in Uttar Pradesh. This (mis)information spread electronically like a wildfire, which authorities took hours to douse until Sunday morning. By the time people rushed to the Terminal in thousands, there were no buses scheduled to run anywhere across Uttar Pradesh. And Ghazipur, the UP bordered urban village of East Delhi where Anand Vihar Bus terminal is located, became a dangerously managed place where crowd of thousands had gathered to escape coronavirus by somehow making way towards their respective native places — by putting all social distancing norms in dizzy.
Both Delhi and UP governments have admitted that these workers left their homes because of rumors dispersed on WhatsApp.
Ayurvedic Remedy to Corona Virus
This,along with many other forwards and preachment of some Ayurvedic opinion leaders seemed to be affecting elderly population the most. In a country dissenting towards unquestionable tenability of Ayurveda, it’s no wonder, news like these are coming up at such a time.
The ingredients mentioned in Whatsapp forwards like Camphor(Kapoor), Cloves(Long), Cardamom(Elaichi) and Mace Spice(Javatri) are conventionally used for their insect repelling nature. People mistook these ingredients’ properties and expanded their set of applicability to Viruses. This would have gone unnoticed and not even a newsworthy entity, until people started showing up on streets, carrying a false sense of security in their hands(Kapoor, Elaichi, Javatri aur long ki pudia) and violating all the boundaries of social distancing, thereby, decelerating India’s efforts to contain this pandemic. Some organizations (name concealed) went a step further to organize Kaadha (a medicinal ayurvedic potion) camps in various parts of the country. These camps were doing more bad than good to the situation as there was zero level of social distancing observed in those places. Thanks to the police, such camps were eventually dispersed.
False claims about the life of Corona virus and precautions for humans
The structured density of information led the user to find this forward, ‘informative’.
This was one of the frst and probably the most spread fake news regarding Corona virus. In fact, this was the second out of tens of Fake News fact checked by PIBfactcheck. Just a little common sense would have worked for rejecting this forward-as a whole- as authentic hence, the otherwise scientifc looking information, which had the most impactful fake news contents from this forward, would have been stopped at its initial stages. Those claims were regarding the survival time of Corona virus on different surfaces. While inquiring with some people on the day of Janta curfew, we found that the ones who went outdoors to cheer up the medical staff by clapping and likewise sounds in GROUPS and LARGE GATHERINGS were carrying a pre-conceived notion that the Virus on all the surfaces was dead meanwhile they were inside their homes. Needless to say, none other than such Whatsapp forwards bestowed this knowledge upon them.
The elixir which took lives
Around 27th March,a half informative-fully fake news started getting circulated on local social networks of Iran. The News claimed that alcohol could prevent a person from COVID-19. Now, for a country where alcohol is banned for most of its population, it’s very dangerous if that news is not correctly comprehended by the public. The same thing happened and industrial alcohol(methanol) was consumed instead of conventional liquor(ethanol). Methanol is a very dangerous substance and this incident rendered a death toll of 300 with more than 1000 sickened by the consumption. Out of those sickened, many must have gone blind because of the toxic effects of methanol, however that information is still ambiguous by the Iranian government side. Associate Press gave even higher number of death told for the same (480) on the account of a source from the Health Ministry of Iran.
Amidst the universal human nature of contentment while being part of a socially benefiting activity, fake news spreaders often forget that what they forward, with a complete goodwill, might make them happy but the unverified information making its way to the real world and inculcating kinetic damage to something as grave as human lives is the exact opposite of what their original intention towards the society might be in first place. It is the need of the hour to increase common sense and scientific temperament of this country so that unverified information doesn’t get to travel miles on an electronic path through a self-serving grey conscience of the human animal.
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