Social media platforms are becoming a hub for false and unidentified news. The trend of false news is dangerous considering the time we are living in where incidents of communal violence and lynching are being reported almost everyday.
Police officials are now trying to keep a watch over people who are spreading rumours on these platforms.
One recent example is of the Shamli police. Shamli is a district in Uttar Pradesh, a state vulnerable to communal violence. The department’s social media team confronted a person on Twitter on Sunday, who posted a message on his account which turned out to be false.
The man spread a rumour about a particular community. On the same day, the Shamli police faced the man and said that the incident shared by him never happened.
The department also vowed to take necessary action against him for spreading false news.
Twitterati praised the effort of the police department for identifying the rumour.
{{/usCountry}}Twitterati praised the effort of the police department for identifying the rumour.
{{/usCountry}}Here are some of the reactions:
Circulation of false news on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp is not new.
Last month Union minister of state, commerce and industry Nirmala Sitharaman fell prey to “unverified information”.
Sitharaman retweeted a post which she later took back as she found that the news was unverified.
Social media platforms are also acknowledging the brewing culture of false news. Facebook, for instance, has given its users “tips to spot false news” in its help center.