If Trade is new form of War, Social media communication surely seems to be emerging as Bullets. One of the most important aspects for development and advancement of Human civilization has been Communication. A successful brand building exercise or any other mass communication can be viewed as the process of creating and sharing ideas, information, views, facts, feelings, etc. among masses to reach a common understanding. A leader in business, politics, religion, science or any other domain may be highly qualified and skilled but if (s)he/they do not possess good communication skills and knack to use the right technology, all these skills and advantages become irrelevant.

‘Regret’ has been expressed by Chung Eui-Yong, South Korean Foreign Minister, in a phone call with EAM S. Jaishankar, regarding the offence caused to the people and government of India by a social media post of Hyundai Pakistan. Similar statement has been issued by Hyundai Global. Hyundai’s Indian unit has called the post ‘unofficial social media activity’ and ‘it has zero-tolerance policy towards insensitive communication’ and they ‘condemn any such view’. Hyundai sells annually around 8,000 cars via ‘distributor’ in Pakistan, while in India it has a full fledged Subsidiary with three decades’ investment and has sold over 5,00,000 cars last year. Yet, #BoycottHyundai has been trending in India since Hyundai Pakistan post supporting the so-called Kashmir Solidarity Day appeared on social media platforms. Messaging of the same nature have been seen for boycotting Kia, KFC, Suzuki, Isuzu and other MNCs for their similar posts.

Governments and Global Corporations may not have many commonalities, but minimising such ‘unofficial’ posts by a third party, whose association is much less of representational nature than the third party commands in public perception, is an emerging priority for both. These feed to misinformation, disinformation and even lead up to Fake News more often than not. The quick and wide reach of social media and the propensity of account hacks etc add to these issues. Perhaps the issue needs similar attention as understanding and compliance of International Tax regimes, because Global corporate management can not plead ignorance to the importance of localised religious , historical and political nuances.

 

Incidents of circulation of “false/fake news” and rumours saw nearly a three-fold rise in 2020, according to NCRB. A total of 1,527 cases of fake news were recorded in 2020 (a 214%increase ) against 486 and 280 cases in 2019 and 2018 respectively. The cases of such fake stories surge invariably when an important event like elections, either for states or centre, takes place. Taking this into account, the Election Commission of India has taken several measures to curb this menace designed to adversely influence the polls or poll prospects of a particular political party.

ECI has set up a dedicated cell to weed out fake news and fake media. The Government of India also does work in close cooperation with it to ensure the election process and people stay uninfluenced by Fake news. A system is up and running on the ECI website to debunk fake news. Dedicated press notes and advisories are issued to aware people about insidious designs of those trying to deliberately deceive or mislead a targeted audience in a particular region, state or at national level, especially through different social media channels.

In March 2022, ECI was even seen in action when it registered an FIR against the fake news hazard talking of EVM hacking by attributing former Chief Election Commission T S Krishnamurthy, and falsely claiming that the former CEC had expressed that a particular party had won assembly elections by hacking EVMs. This fake news was widely being circulated on the social platforms by some miscreants with flagrant vested interests. At times, ECI, also works with social media platforms in identifying and pulling out posts which appear to be fake and have prospects of misleading people at large. The central government is also at an advanced stage, finalising IT related new rules for social media organisations, which would potentially mandate social media platforms to remove such vindictive and spiteful contents within 24 hours. Under the new norms, deployment of technology driven automated tools and mechanisms would also be in place to proactively and timely identify, remove or disable public access to such illegal contents.

Many media houses as well as private initiatives are also in place now to combat fake news menace. These efforts rely on catching a content going viral and putting it to test the authenticity. Though there are multiple AI based methodologies being tried, the most common process is still finding a phone number to speak and verify the source. What is being checked has already gone viral, is an inherent issue with this approach and needs innovation to resolve many deadlocks, huge backlog of pending verifications and making the entire process efficient. The other problem is knowingly or unknowingly leaning to certain political viewpoint rather than keeping this exercise apolitical. This biased fake news busting exercise takes away credibility, thereby seriously damaging the efforts.

Public Broadcaster in India, Prasar Bharati, through DD News (TV), Akashvani Samachar (Radio) and PBNS (Digital) has been combating fake news by running various programs on these media. The efforts have been multiplied for disseminating authentic covid-related information. This has certainly helped in pre-emptively busting the rumour mongering tendencies. Together with the Government’s efforts by disseminating guidelines and running fake news busting exercises by PIB and MyGov, Prasar Bharati is playing a proactive and pivotal role in transparent communication about the disease, vaccines, movement restrictions and other aspects of this combat. Unlike private media however, these efforts have to remain focused on key problems of public domain, while disinformation is a much wider issue. Though, PBNS has been producing social videos of general awareness as well as it’s daily e-magazine namely “PBNS Daily Magazine” covers wider issues too.

 

The thing about numbers is that they don’t lie. This feature alone should make numbers the truest friend of any journalist. Relying just on words to express complex ideas, thoughts and opinions can not only be cumbersome, but also get trapped in the folly of disinformation, misinformation and even fake news. The widespread extent of COVID-19 has exacerbated the known discomfort of journalists with large amount of data for making opinions and analysis.

More often than not, journalists seem to be picking on the concept of dismissing any prevalent theory in an effort to combat any narrative. The idea of generating new theories and narratives requires a deeper look at available data in scientific research, census of various kinds and other public and private sources of data. Majority of the media organisations across the globe are focussing more and more on gathering different facets of data and humanising them to suit the burgeoning needs of the people with varied interests from all walks of life. Nevertheless, data driven journalism needs different data tools and techniques to stand tall, it does alleviate the pain of being judged, addressing the issues to the core and bringing out the most relevant facts and figures which leave no room for any confusion. Marketeers are familiar with the concept of primary and secondary data of market research. The basic tools deployed for crunching data in market research should also be made available to journalists in Journalism courses.

COVID-19 experience has shown journalists that the ability to understand the reports from the scientific community and decoding them, simplifying them, needed to be done in a masterful way at quick speed, to fulfil the duties of a thorough journalist. Data reported by politicians and executives as the basis of quickly planned policies needed to be examined with a comb to ensure transparency and equitable distribution of scarce, and life saving, resources. This learning also highlights the urgent need to understand data by journalists as one looks towards a future which is green and sustainable.

One of the three key goals identified by the government during the budget 2022 is promoting digital economy & fintech, technology enabled development, energy transition, and climate action. To protect the interests of future generations and prepare them for upcoming global challenges, achieving these tech and sustainability goals is vital. Data being generated around tech developments, and even the basic climate change related facts need to be understood in a better manner, as every conceivable aspect of the future of human civilisation is going to be affected by the debate and discussion around sustainability and tech development. Data is already ruling the roost for all three pillars of – information, education and entertainment – hence, journalism needs to get a better hang of looking at the couple together – numbers & words.