2021 was a year dominated by the news of farmers protesting at Delhi’s borders, vaccines rolling out in India, a devastating second Covid wave, polls in four states and one union territory, and, internationally, Taliban taking over Afghanistan.
It was also a year flooded with misinformation on all of the above.
WhatsApp forwards on farmers demanding “Khalistan”, anti-vax theories and “cures” for oxygen shortage, old videos passed off as “rigging” during the Bengal election, video game footage passed off as Pakistani fighter planes in Afghanistan, fake news specifically targeting minorities – all this and more was debunked by fact-checking portals in India.
While some of these fact-checking portals are extended arms of news organisations, others function independently and solely to debunk fake news and misinformation.
India is a hotbed of fake news and misinformation, and data shows that it is rising. After scrutinising 9,657 instances of misinformation originating from 138 countries between January 1, 2020 and March 1, 2021, the IFLA Journal found that India produced the largest amount of social media misinformation.
Closer home, data from the National Crime Records Bureau also found a 214 percent increase in the circulation of fake news and rumours in 2020 as compared to previous years.
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