NEW DELHI: Ahead of the general elections, spread of misinformation through social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp seems to have gathered pace, with a study claiming that one in two respondents have received fake news in the last 30 days.
Circulation of fake news on digital platforms has been a pain point, and the Government has warned social media companies that any abuse of the platforms to influence electorate will not be tolerated.
Accordingly, social media giants like Facebook and Google have stepped up election safety efforts, inducing transparency in political ads, roping in an army of fact checkers and commissioning tools to weed out content that is flagged to be false.
As per the survey by Social Media Matters and Institute for Governance, Policies and Politics (IGPP), over 53 per cent of the respondents claimed to have received fake news over various social media platforms “due to the upcoming elections”.
“It has been noted that Facebook and WhatsApp are the platforms which are being used excessively to misinform the users. An approximate of 1 in two Indians have agreed to have received fake news in the last 30 days,” it claimed. (AGENCIES)
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