COVID-19 and WhatsApp Fuel Surge of Fake News in India

With a new wave of COVID-19, a new surge of fake news also washed over India. A scientific study carried out by doctors from Rochester, New York, and Pune, India, and published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Medical Internet Research gives some insights into the behaviour of Indian internet users during the pandemic on one of the prime sources of COVID-19 misinformation in the country, WhatsApp. The survey found that around 30% of Indians used WhatsApp for COVID-19 information, and just about as many fact-checked less than 50% of messages before forwarding them. 13% of respondents even said that they never fact-checked messages before forwarding on WhatsApp. According to the report, a minority of users were responsible for the bulk of forwarding, however. Only 14% forwarded three or more messages a day, and only 5% forwarded nine or more. Also Read: Social Media Companies Fail to Deal With Rampant COVID-19 Misinformation in Hindi The survey also looked at age groups and found that those over the age of 65 were more likely to receive misinformation and were also more likely to believe and act on it, while this was least likely for those under the age of 25. As a…
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