The month of January saw significant amount of Islamophobic claims and anti-Bollywood claims, with the latter primarily targeting the newly released film 'Pathaan', accounting for 10.34 per cent and 9.2 per cent of all our fact-checks, respectively.
BOOM did 87 fact-checks in the month of January, in English, Hindi, and Bangla, each of them debunking a unique false or misleading claim.
Our analysis revealed that most of the claims are Political in nature - accounting for 24 per cent of the data set, followed by International and Entertainment related claims, comprising 20 per cent and 16 per cent of the total claims respectively.
Pathaan Unleashes Polarising Falsities
A closer look at Entertainment-related claims revealed that the surge in such falsities was owed to the release of the Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone-starrer Pathaan.
With eight fact-checks around the film, we noticed the false claims to be polarising in nature - with both positive and negative sentiment being displayed. Few examples are presented below :
Old Kochi Mall Video Falsely Shared As Huge Crowd For Pathaan In Bihar
As an example of a 'positive' claim, we received an old video of a huge crowd inside a shopping mall in Kochi is circulating on social media with a false claim that it shows film enthusiasts outside a multiplex in Bhagalpur, Bihar, waiting to watch Shah Rukh Khan’s latest release Pathaan. We found that the video shows a huge crowd that had gathered in LuLu Mall in Kochi, Kerala on the occasion of a special midnight sale day in July, 2022.
Read more on the story here.
An example of a negative claim, we found a four-year old video showing a group of women coming out of a movie theater criticising the Shah Rukh Khan-starrer 'Zero'. This video was being peddled as moviegoers giving negative reviews to the actor's latest release 'Pathaan'. Read more about it here.
Islamophobic Claims Consistently Top The List
When it comes to Islamophobic claims, our fact checking was limited to generic cases of communally polarising messages and posts. Here is an example of such claim -
Video of Man Kicking Goddess Saraswati Portrait Peddled With False Communal Claim
An upsetting video of a man kicking an idol of goddess Saraswati, allegedly at a school in Gujarat was viral with the claim that the person in question is a Muslim intent on hurting Hindu sentiments. The infamous line 'Sir tan se juda' has been used in the claim to provoke an emotional response from viewers. BOOM's investigation found the man to be a Hindu Adivasi. Viewers can read it further here.
Political Falsities Targeting Rahul Gandhi
When it comes to political claims, the major theme resonating was the ongoing 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' via which Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was targeted.
A photo purporting to show Gandhi drinking alcohol and eating chicken during the Bharat Jodo Yatra, was found to be morphed. The original picture clicked by journalist and documentary filmmaker Paranjoy Guha Thakurta shows Gandhi having a milk based drink, dry fruits, pumpkin seeds and fox nuts.
Read the story here.
Types And Outcome Effects Of False Claims
We further classified false claims based on the type of information manipulation in use and the type of impact they could have on recipients of such claims.
We incorporated an existing typology provided by Claire Wardle of First Draft News, who categorised 'fake news' into the following types: Satire or Parody (also Humour), Misleading Content, Imposter Content, Fabricated Content, False Connection, False Context and Manipulated Content. We applied these types to the Indian context and modified the first type (Satire/Parody) into Spoof, taking into account the myriad purposes behind the making of those claims.
Last month, the most common type of deceptive information was found to be ‘False Context’ - where genuine information is shared with unrelated contextual information, accounting for 33 per cent of all the claims we studied.
The second type of false information was in the form of ‘Misleading Content’ - where genuine information is twisted to frame individuals/issues, accounting for 26 per cent of the total fact-checks.
The third type of false claim, in the form of ‘Manipulated Content’ - alteration of genuine information, contributed to 17 per cent of all the claims.
Here are examples of claims pertaining to the top 2 types as mentioned above -
1) False Context = Following the alarming land subsidence at Joshimath, Uttarakhand the above image went viral claiming to show an aerial shot of the ensuing damage to livelihood in the state. In fact, the above image is from Cusco in Peru, showing the aftermath of a devastating landslide in 2018. You can read the story here.
2) Misleading Content - News outlets like NDTV India, Times Now Navbharat and Aaj Tak falsely framed an entire community by claiming that the main accused in the fatal stabbing of a Delhi Police Assistant Sub-Inspector is Muslim. BOOM's inquiry with Delhi Police proved otherwise, as the main accused turned out to be one Anish Raj, a Hindu name. You can read the story here.
The other categorisation was regarding the outcome effects of the claims. Going through all the false claims, we have coined six different outcome effects - Demographic Anxiety, Smear Campaign, Fake sensationalism, and Negative Sentiment against Country.
We defined each of these categories as following -
- Fake Sensationalism - Presenting information in a way that is intended to excite individuals and promote the claim’s further spread to the masses.
- Demographic Anxiety - Creating animosity against certain demographic groups
- Smear Campaign - An attempt at damaging the public image of individuals/organisations
- Negative Sentiment against Country - Justifying prejudice against an entire country
The most commonly identified impact of spreading deceiving information last month was to create ‘Fake Sensationalism’, contributing to 62 per cent of all the claims.
The second most prominent type was ‘Smear Campaign’, accounting for 21 per cent of all the claims.
A couple of examples from the top two outcome assessments -
Following the demise of PM Narendra Modi's mother, the above claim went viral purportedly showing the Prime Minister clean shaven, as per Hindu customs. We found the image to be morphed. This is a typical sensationalist claim. Go here to read on this further.
The claim here allegedly shows Bilawal Ali Bhutto, son of (Late) Benazir Bhutto dancing to the tunes of 'Besharam Rang', a song that angered several Hindutva leaders and activists who claimed that the song intentionally hurt Hindu sentiments. This is a classic example of smearing and BOOM found out that the man in the video is being misidentified as Bilawal Bhutto. Read more on this story here.
Videos Still The Most Popular Medium Of Deception
The two most prominent aspects addressed by the false claims - namely Political and International claims, both used videos as their preferred medium for deception. 57 per cent of political claims used videos, as did 87 per cent of International claims, and 54 per cent of Entertainment claims.