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New Delhi, October 31 (IANS) In 2020, Bihar Assembly elections were announced when the country was coming out of the coronavirus pandemic and citizens were slowly coming out of the ‘lockdown’; And when the World Wide Web proved to be the most effective means of communication.
While the voting process had to be done on time in keeping with the rules in a parliamentary democracy, the Election Commission had to issue a stricture on physical campaigns to follow health and hygiene safety protocols. As election campaigns and political outreach increased on the Internet, fraudsters sharpened their skills on the Internet. The election campaign was infiltrated through fake news to influence voters. Some were detected, some were not.
But as technology brought election information to mobile screens, it also brought with it inaccurate and fraudulent data and content. Misinformation and disinformation flourished on social media amid challenges of maintaining electoral integrity along with money, muscle power, including violations of the Model Code of Conduct. However, Bihar Election 2020 was conducted successfully despite all odds.
Now, the 2025 assembly elections will be the first to be held in the state, after the Election Commission launched a “register” with answers to frequently asked questions to capture information about false and misleading information during the process. The election body launched the “Myth versus Reality Register” on April 2, 2024, days before the Lok Sabha elections that year. It will be updated with information along with inputs from upcoming exercises collected through the Commission’s monitoring sources.
However, with the advancement in technology and the vastness of the World Wide Web, monitoring and sharing such fake-information is time-consuming and sometimes proves difficult.
In August this year, the Election Commission rejected reports circulating on various social media platforms claiming that the Election Commission had suddenly removed the e-voter lists of several states from its website. The commission said anyone can download the voter list for any of the 36 states and union territories through its website ‘voters.eci.gov.in’.
On October 24, the election body issued an advisory specifying guidelines on the use of AI-generated content for election campaigning ahead of the Bihar Assembly elections this year. Fake news on the Internet is not recent, although widespread use of social media and video communication applications has increased during the pandemic-induced lockdown.
A few years ago, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found that fake news spreads much faster and more widely online than real news. Their findings, published in the journal Science, revealed, “Fake news spreads faster than true news on Twitter (changed to X) – thanks to people, not bots.” It says that such posts containing lies are 70 percent more likely to be retweeted than true tweets.
The researchers analyzed a huge dataset that included about 1,26,000 news cascades on
To ensure accuracy, the study relied on assessments from six independent fact-checking organizations, resulting in a high level of consensus on the veracity of the news.
In particular, fake news was found to be particularly prevalent in the political sphere.
“Whether it is India, Britain or the United States, where social media is used extensively to reach a certain section of voters, you will find such misinformation and disinformation,” said Dr Sambit Pal, director-in-charge, International School of Broadcasting and Journalism, MIT University of Art, Design and Technology, Pune.
“Fake news has become an integral part of political communication everywhere. In India, social media has been used aggressively by political parties with a dedicated IT department to micro-target voters and change the narrative. Here, many supporters abuse the process to suit their own narrative,” said Dr Pal, who is also part of the Google News Initiative’s India Training Network, which conducts workshops on fact-checking and fake news verification.
–IANS
JB/UK