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Mistrustful Indians in mainstream media broadcast information from alternative sources without verifying it. In doing so, they believe they are promoting the "real story," according to a study by the BBC.
The people they surveyed relied on markers such as the type of images in a message or on the recipient to decide whether it was worth sharing them on Facebook or WhatsApp. As a result, it was often assumed that messages from friends and family members were trustworthy, regardless of their origin.
Nearly 37% of the messages sent on WhatsApp involved, among other things, "scams" related to technology and conspiracies, while about 30% could be classified in the category of nationalism, including stories of "d & # 39; "Ordinary men" and the preservation of culture, said the BBC.
BBC researchers interviewed 80 people in three countries (India, Nigeria and Kenya) for seven days, analyzing their media consumption habits and studying how they used Facebook and WhatsApp on their phones to share information. They found that respondents in all three countries made little effort to determine the original source of what they shared.
Previous research by the BBC has shown that nearly 72% of Indians have difficulty distinguishing between real and invented stories. Together, these findings suggest the glaring need for greater digital literacy in India, in response to the growing concern over the deadly consequences of misinformation in the country.
India has recently witnessed several shocking lynching cases caused by the spread of rumors about WhatsApp. In response, the Indian government has sent severe warnings to Facebook's messaging service, which limits the number of times that a message can be transmitted in the country. But with the next national elections in India in the coming months, the political consequences of misinformation could be enormous.
BBC researchers also looked at around 16,000 Twitter accounts and 3,000 Facebook pages to study the polarization of misinformation in India. Their results indicated a "strong and consistent" promotion of right-wing messages, while left-wing false news networks were less organized and less effective.
Earlier this year, researchers at Oxford University warned that the crisis of misinformation in India and the militarization of social media would only intensify in the election year.
