London: People in India share fake news stories with nationalistic messages for “nation building” purposes without any attempt at fact-checking a report, according to a BBC research.
The findings, released on Monday, come from extensive research in India, Kenya and Nigeria into the way citizens engage with and spread fake news, the British public broadcaster said.
According to the report, there is also an overlap of fake news sources on Twitter and support networks of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The report suggests an “overlap between fake news and pro-Modi political activity” in India.
The BBC said its first published study, providing an in-depth understanding of how fake news and disinformation are spreading within encrypted chat apps, reveals that emotion is trumping reason when it comes to sharing news.
“Whilst most discussion in the media has focused on ‘fake news’ in the West, this piece of research gives strong evidence that a serious set of problems are emerging in the rest of the world where the idea of nation-building is trumping the truth when it comes to sharing stories on social media,” said Jamie Angus, Director, BBC World Service Group.
As part of the extensive research using big data and analytics, the BBC found that in Indian Twitter networks, known right-wing sources of fake news seem-ed more closely aligned than left-wing sources.
“This allows right leaning fake news to spread faster and wider than left leaning fake news,” notes the extensive research carried out by the BBC in the three countries. The research forms part of the BBC Beyond Fake News project, a new international anti-disinformation initiative of programmes and discussions.
The research revealed that fake news was being unwittingly spread by people across India, Kenya, and Nigeria as they forward me-ssages in the hope that so-meone else will check the truth of the story for them.
