Fake alert keeps many indoors

Terrified by a message about a possible terror attack, people in Bengaluru stayed home last weekend

For three days, Bengaluru was in the grip of panic as a message on WhatsApp warned of a ‘possible terror attack’.

It was a screenshot of a ‘high-alert’ memo leaked from the City Police Commissioner’s Bhaskar Rao’s office. He has since ordered an inquiry into how the message was leaked.

Such was the fear it created that citizens cancelled weekend plans and locked themselves up in their houses, allaying the concerns of relatives who called from other cities.

This is what misinformation spread through WhatsApp or social media platforms can achieve — the list of consequences ranges from hoarding food grains to incidents of lynching and mass hysteria.

Why do people forward messages blindly? Dr Shyamali Kowshik, psychologist, BR Life SSNMC Hospital, attributes it to two types of triggers — internal and external. External factors include ease of sharing such posts and captions that exhort you to share them. An internal trigger is that you fall emotionally for the message—for example, when people received the news of a possible terror attack, they forwarded the message to keep their friends and family safe. In such instances, we don’t check for the authenticity of the message, she explains.

“It makes us feel happy, as if we have done something,” Dr Shyamali says. “Most people follow the principle of ‘better safe than sorry’. If the message is true, then they have to let people know. ‘If not, what harm can it do’ is how they think.”

Fear psychosis

Much harm can be done by these fake forwards. States like Karnataka, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Assam, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Tripura and Gujarat witnessed frenzied mobs beating people to death, suspecting them of being child-lifters. Reason: a fake WhatsApp message that claimed that child-lifters were on the prowl and people should be alert.

Recently, in Kerala and Karnataka, a piece of fake news said petrol pumps would remain closed for three days as tankers were stuck on the Mumbai-Bengaluru Highway due to incessant rain.

People rushed to petrol pumps, leading to long queues and triggering more panic. Rain-related ‘red alerts’, news about trains being cancelled, videos of bridges collapsing and roads being closed are among the latest instances of fake news doing the rounds in Bengaluru and Karnataka.

WhatsApp connect

For many people, especially senior citizens and people located in rural parts of the country, WhatsApp is the first, and sometimes only, connect with the outside world.

Youth between 21-28 are least likely to forward messages which seem untrue but many in the older age groups are not so cautious, say experts.

New users are especially vulnerable to online manipulation, and can’t see through things that people more familiar with the Internet would detect.

Detect fake news

Though WhatsApp is taking measures to tackle the flood of fake news, the first check should be at an individual level, says Sreesanth V, cybersecurity expert.

“Nothing beats plain common sense; if the message seems too fantastic or unbelievable, it probably is. Just don’t forward it then. The next simple way to verify something is to Google it. It takes just a few seconds,” he says.

Other ways include asking a more Net savvy person about it, or asking a friend to check on fake news buster websites such as Alt News, he suggests.

“If the information is untrue, point it out to the sender and ask them to send a correction in all the groups or chats they sent the message to,” he says.