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Fake News: Chaddi Hatemongers Passed Off Bangladesh Video as Anti-Hindu Violence in Bihar

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Fake News: Chaddi Hatemongers Passed Off Bangladesh Video as Anti-Hindu Violence in Bihar Empty Fake News: Chaddi Hatemongers Passed Off Bangladesh Video as Anti-Hindu Violence in Bihar

Post by Guest Mon Apr 17, 2017 9:00 am

As the United States and even Europe battle fake news on social media, India is dealing with a much more severe crisis of its own. Unlike the West, where bogus articles are primarily shared via Facebook and Twitter, rumour mongers in India prefer to use a more intimate medium – WhatsApp.


It is free and easy to download. All you need is a smartphone. Unlike other social media platforms, WhatsApp users aren’t even required to register or ‘log in’ and its end-to-end encryption makes it impossible to track what flows through it. It’s biggest asset for the rumour-monger is that once the fake news is seeded, it becomes virtually impossible to trace the point of origin. When it comes to Facebook, it is easy to track instigators who help circulate a false and inflammatory rumour but not always the point of origin – a point that investigators in Uttar Pradesh have just used to let off Bharatiya Janata Party MLA Sangeet Som, who was charged with using Facebook to instigate the 2013 anti-Muslim violence in Muzaffarnagar.


Worryingly, fake news and rumours continue to be used to fuel communal hatred and even violence. Over the past week, a video presented as  ‘a Hindu man’ being hacked to death by ‘Muslim men’ in Nawada, Bihar is being circulated on WhatsApp with similar intent. What makes this fake news especially dangerous is that there were indeed minor communal clashes in the Bihar town on April 5 in which three persons were injured.


The gruesome video, which is actually from Bangladesh, has has now gone viral on Facebook too, where it is being shared as an example of Muslim violence on Hindus in India. This is yet another example of the propaganda machinery in play to misinform people, create a feeling of insecurity amongst Hindus, and lay the ground for greater communal polarisation and even violence. The beneficiaries of this propaganda campaign would obviously be those organisations that seek to mobilise support by appealing to majority religious sentiment.


https://thewire.in/124455/fake-news-whatsapp-hindu-muslim-violence/

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