Spreading of fake news by major political parties in India such as Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), India National Congress (INC) and Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is a common well documented phenomenon. As findings by Narayanan et al. suggest that a quarter of the content shared by the BJP and a fifth by the INC is junk news, while the SP and BSP share very little sensationalist, extremist, or conspiratorial content (2019, para. 01). Bansal et al. write that the “Association of Billion Minds (ABM) is, Amit Shah’s [Indian Home Minister] personal election unit, recommending election candidates, running Nation with NaMo and creating fake news sites”, and that “has tasked . . . with running sophisticated misinformation campaigns to spread fake news and false claims on social media and WhatsApp and in staged conversations in public gatherings” (2019, para. 06). In his review of a book by Martin Moore, Democracy Hacked: Political Turmoil and Information Warfare in the Digital Age, M. Haneef summarises the point made about the situation of digital media in India that, like everywhere else, the digital armies of political parties publish posts, upload memes, organise disinformation campaigns, fill forums with misinformation, produce disinformation campaigns and spread discord and hate (2020, para. 09). More recently, writing for the AltNews, a fact-checking website committed to “debunking misinformation, disinformation and mal-information that we encounter on a daily basis on social media as well as mainstream media”, Kalim Ahmed (2021) has reported as several media outlets such as Hindustan TimesIndia TodayMintTimes of IndiaABPNewsRepublicTV, spreading fake news about Balakot airstrike on Pakistan, by a reference to a “clipped, doctored” video (2021, para. 04).

Conclusion