Published in The Hindu

Combatting fake news is a growing preoccupation of big-tech platforms, the political class, the news media, and an increasing tribe of citizens concerned about democracy being hijacked. There is a perception that fake news is a new phenomenon linked to the rise of social media; however, this is only half the story. Governments and political actors (anyone in the business of mobilising public opinion) have always invested in disinformation campaigns to build narrative of their choice. In fact, it is because institutional news media is no longer seen as an arbitrator of “real news” – having lost credibility due to complicit and motivated reporting (establishment version of fake news) – that fake news has been able to thrive in the social media. The advent of social media has merely decentralised the creation and/or propagation of fake news. It is this, which has led to ubiquity and difficulty in controlling/eliminating fake news.

The current response to fake news primarily revolves around three prongs of rebuttal, removal, and educating the public. While these are necessary measures, it is not apparent that they are sufficient in of themselves in addressing the larger “political” problem of fake news. Rebuttal is a form of fact check wherein the fake news is debunked by pointing out mismatch from historical record or current events, malicious photo or video editing, misattributions etc. To the extent that the fake news appears on institutional handles, attempts are made to have it taken down (removed) after rebuttal. There is much pressure on big tech companies like Facebook and YouTube to proactively remove fake news from their platforms after it has been flagged by users and rework their algorithms to ensure that extreme content, mostly fake, is not surfaced and pushed up to ensure that users maximise time on the platform. The newly introduced limits on forwarding messages on Whatsapp are an offshoot of this discourse where accountability to address fake news is being offloaded on to the tech platforms. The third leg of the response revolves around educating the end user to be a more discerning consumer of news, teaching them tools to verify news themselves, ascertain accuracy before sharing or forwarding etc. The fourth emerging strand in this discourse, propagated by the Government, is to try and track the “source” of fake news ostensibly to address the issue at its root. This combined with another proposal to de-anonymise all social media accounts is fraught with serious concerns regarding both privacy and free speech, and will more often than not be used by Governments to quell dissent.

While the measures outlined are important and must be expanded, there are some evident shortcomings of this approach. First, the attempt to rebut fake news is akin to hitting a moving target, with a steady stream of fake news being churned out one after the other. One may rebut one fake instance of child lifting, or Indian citizens toting Pakistan’s flags, or corruption of an opposition leader but the fake news factory will keep churning out similar stories to advance its chosen narrative. Second, it is impossible to “remove” fake news even after rebuttal given the decentralised nature of propagation. Propagation and virality is contingent not on accuracy but on the strength of the associated distribution networks and how well the fake news conforms to the dominant narrative. Thus, the “rebuttal” vies for space with the original fake news instead of supplanting it. In India, the right-wing propagators of fake news are often better organised with wider distribution channels, especially on messaging platforms like Whatsapp than the liberal opposition. However, the biggest shortcoming of this approach goes beyond this cat and mouse problem: the biggest and most damning shortcoming is that the very act of rebuttal reinforces the fake narrative being pushed. Since the rebuttal itself is confined within the original framework of fake news, the political impact of the rebuttal is far less than our expectations.

The average voter/consumer relies on overall frameworks/narratives to evaluate information. Increasing complexity of issues in conjunction with deluge of information (relevant jostling with the irrelevant) has made it impossible for any individual to develop a well-researched stand on all issues. When individual pieces of information (fake news or not) conform to our held beliefs, the information is readily accepted and shared. In fact, studies have confirmed that people don’t care about finding the “truth” and instead look for additional evidence to support their preferred narrative (confirmation bias). Therefore, debunking discrete items of fake news without addressing the underlying framework/narrative has only marginal value because while the individual item of fake news has reinforcement value, it is simply discarded and replaced with another piece of fake news when it is debunked.

It is evident that if we are concerned about the impact of fake news, we must address the underlying narrative instead of merely trying to rebut individual items of fake news. This needs to be done in two connected ways: first, by addressing the underlying weaknesses which allow the fake news narrative to take root. For instance, globally, the liberal camp has lost credibility and is perceived to be elite and corrupt. The right-wing narrative is propelled by fake news but is founded on this loss of credibility. Any way forward must rebuild this lost credibility. Second, we must not get hemmed in in a losing narrative by attempting to rebut fake news. Instead, we must mobilise public opinion on an alternate narrative in which the selected fake news is irrelevant. Most people cannot hold multiple stories in their head and thus instead of poking holes in the opponent’s story, it may be more effective to replace the story with a narrative which helps us advance our agenda. Ultimately all fake news is in service of a political, even if not electoral, agenda. We should thus not lose sight of the woods for the trees by focusing disproportionately on individual fake news instead of the larger narrative.