In Telangana, fighting fake news
Serish Nanisetti JULY 08, 2018 00:00 IST
UPDATED: JULY 08, 2018 03:46 IST
For four months now, Telangana has been using all hands,
government machinery, village heads, folk musicians and so forth, to fight back
against the spread of rumours and fake news that have taken lives.
What happened?
Three persons were killed in attacks triggered by rumours
about gangs of cannibals, child-lifters and organ harvesters over the past few
months. That the death toll is lower has a lot to do with how the government
moved quickly to stop fake news being spread through videos and WhatsApp. Over
the past couple of months, across the length and breadth of the country, mobs
have beaten to death people they suspect — almost always without basis — of
plotting to kidnap children to harvest their organs. Last Sunday, five persons
were lynched in Dhule district of Maharashtra on suspicion of being
child-lifters.
What steps did Telangana take?
First off the block was Director-General of Police Mahender
Reddy who tweeted on May 22, urging the people not to believe in social media
rumours on kidnappers and burglars.
“The news is totally false,” he said, asking the people to
call the police in an emergency. The tweet came after a few villagers attacked a
45-year-old man while he was with his friend. The man succumbed to his injuries
in Hyderabad. The two men were from a different village and were passing
through when they were encountered by angry villagers who did not let them
speak and thrashed them. On May 26, a driver was lynched on the outskirts of
the city. On the same night, a transgender was lynched. She had come to
Hyderabad, along with two others, from a neighbouring village for alms that are
liberally given during Ramzan.
Police officials have adopted both modern and age-old methods
to fight rumour-mongering. For example, Rema Rajeshwari, Superintendent of
Police in Gadwal district, roped in village drummers to spread the word. In
Hyderabad, officials have erected flex boards in regional languages at railway
stations, bus stops and city junctions to stop the rumour mills. Police
officials have even roped in religious leaders to alert them to fake news. But
instead of limiting it to a one-off awareness campaign, the police are
conducting regular meetings in villages which are more vulnerable. The
citizen-engagement programme is in its fourth month in some places where police
officials have been assigned areas for creating awareness.
Along with these proactive steps, more than a dozen young men
have been picked up for spreading rumours on WhatsApp groups. A few ‘social
media journalists’ have also fallen into the police dragnet after they
forwarded messages. Senior police officials have taken to social media to
spread multi-lingual messages against fake news.
Why are migrants vulnerable?
Some of the videos being shared are extremely gruesome. One
of the videos that went viral is from Karachi in Pakistan, meant to show how
easily children can be kidnapped. Other fake news forwards doing the rounds spoke
about the gangs being unfamiliar with the local language. This has made many
individuals in Telangana particularly vulnerable as a large number of workers
and migrants have moved into the booming metropolis of Hyderabad and its
surrounding areas.
Will the rumours stop?
A behaviour psychiatrist from the National Institute of
Mental Health and Neurosciences says this is mob psychology at play rather than
hysteria or mass or group hysteria. “Responsibility is diffused in a mob. This
empowers the participants in a big way, leading them to behave irresponsibly.
It takes very strong action to dissuade the mob,” says Dr. M. Manjula of
NIMHANS. “Only a sustained awareness campaign over a long period of time can
stop this rumour mongering as it involves children, and people are very
sensitive and attached to children.” So, in a sense, the Telangana
administration and police are on the right path.
Serish Nanisetti
No comments:
Post a Comment