Policymakers, politicians and the public at large have a lot to learn from the ‘success’ of the ‘WhatsApp hartal ’ that hit Kerala on April 16, which turned violent in some sensitive places in the State. For starters, no particular political party had called for this hartal to protest against the Kathua tragedy, news of which had spread on social media, mainly via WhatsApp, across gadget-savvy Kerala, prompting hordes of people to take to the street and disrupt normal public life.

The violence that ensued grabbed media attention with national television channels blaming certain community groups for inciting terror in the name of a tragic incident. According to reports quoting Kerala police, the call for harta l was sent out by a group of people who were part of a WhatsApp community called ‘Voice of Youth’. The five people booked by the police last week in connection with the incident were former RSS workers.

Minority groups allege that right wing groups were trying deliberately to create tension in the State. But the real trouble is that society at large is swayed by the welter of posts on social media, with its overload of fake news. This is despite the fact that mainstream media or other reliable sources of information are not in short supply in a high-literacy State like Kerala.

Our inability to verify such social media ‘news’ can have long-lasting ramifications. Trends suggest that there is no respite in sight. Last year, the Digital News Report from the Reuters Institute and the University of Oxford, which surveyed 71,805 respondents from 36 countries, suggested that about 50 per cent of the people get their daily dose of news from social media (Facebook and WhatsApp, mainly). Social media companies, including Facebook, have expressed their helplessness in weeding out fake, propaganda news. The onus squarely falls on civil societies and governments. Making social media administrators accountable can be a good start.

Jinoy Jose PDeputy Editor

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