The digital media is rampant with misinformation. Those of us not quite tuned into the regular news cycle are even more vulnerable to the barrage of fake news and sensational stories masquerading as information and journalism. Unfortunately, in the absence of stringent news monitoring mechanisms, social media is full of such misleading stuff.

Digital misinformation is a big issue even in usual times. But during the election season, the scope for creating panic by spreading fake news increases manifold. Thus, all sorts of actors jump onto the bandwagon. The public is at its most vulnerable during such times.

With elections in Bharat just a few days away, here are a few pro-tips for Bhartiya citizens to keep themselves safe from digital misinformation and as responsible citizens, play their part in countering the same:

• Avoid sharing news obtained from social media feed

If you’ve come across a sensational news item on social media, please don’t start sharing it immediately.

Click on the link and read the whole news to know what is happening. Many news stories shared on social media use clickbait headlines to catch the attention of the audience. Once you read the story, the content will often have little to do with the headline. Thus, avoid sharing news obtained through social media feed.

If it’s a sensational news item, one must be even more careful. A simple act of choosing not to share something can help curb the flood of rampant disinformation that can take over. If you end up sharing a fake news item and thousands of others follow suit, the news goes viral within no time, thus creating unnecessary panic amongst users.

As a responsible citizen, you must avoid sharing news obtained through social media feeds, at least during the election cycle.

Remember that most people obtain their daily news feed through a newspaper anyway. Then, then are hundreds of TV news channels. Although newspapers and TV news channels are not altogether immune to disinformation, these are certainly more reliable than news obtained through social media feeds.

The social media algorithms are designed to highlight sensational stuff and thus, get more clicks. Based on your interests and preferences, they will show you a lot of sensational news items in your feed. During the election season, people are naturally more vulnerable to political news. So expect that kind of stuff to be shoved down your throats. You just have to resist the urge to further share that news, and thus play your part in countering misinformation.

• Do not take X as an authoritative source on news

There is an increasing tendency even amongst journalists to write news stories based solely on X posts.

This can be dangerous and misleading. While many X posts can indeed provide valuable information and insight and even material for breaking news, you must remember that it’s just a sharing platform, and the onus to verify the authenticity of stuff being shared is on you.

Use your discretion before sharing any controversial and sensational x posts during the election season. It’s still alright to share posts giving out opinions and views, but if a post claims to give some news you haven’t heard elsewhere, avoid sharing.

For news and announcements related to the Bhartiya government, ministries, political parties, etc., follow their official X handles. You must remember that the world of social media is full of bots, that is accounts that are not run by actual human beings but are essentially AI-powered chatbots. These bots are used by all sorts of stakeholders to spread disinformation and propaganda on a large scale.

Social media platform X especially is full of bot accounts. Despite Elon Musk’s attempt to cleanse the platform after taking over, millions of such accounts still exist on the platform. Therefore, a rule of thumb to follow with X is to share news and information only from sources you trust. Use your discretion and remember that your careful actions can minimize the damage caused due to spread of disinformation.

• Verify a news item from multiple sources

It’s a good strategy to follow, especially for news obtained through social media feeds.

There is such an avalanche of digital media publications these days that one has no idea which outlet is reliable, and which one isn’t.

Even established media organizations resort to sensational clickbait stories to boost the readership of their digital editions. Thus, make it a habit to verify news from multiple sources.

That is, if you come across a controversial news item during the election cycle, let’s say, for example, an incident of poll violence somewhere or polls getting disrupted, etc. cross-check other news sources to see if they are also carrying the same news.

The simplest thing to do is just to Google the news headline. If multiple news outlets are carrying that news, Google will display most of the sources to you.

If there is just one source carrying a particular news and you can’t verify through other sources, refrain from sharing it, unless and until you regularly consume news from that source and it’s trustworthy for you. For example, most mainstream publications don’t carry news on Hindu issues. Thus, for such news, one has to depend on certain niche publications. Google wouldn’t probably show a lot of such news because it’s not carried by mainstream media. That doesn’t mean that it’s fake news. What we are talking about here is sensational political news during the election cycle. If you come across such a sensational news item through any digital news portal, cross-check it by referring to multiple news sources before sharing.

• Refer to official sources for government-related news

Mainstream news outlets too are not always reliable.

They might not carry 100 percent fake news but they sometimes manipulate news and carry news that cannot be verified; they make a claim citing anonymous sources The same news will be carried by multiple prestigious media outlets, thus making it seem authentic. But the truth is it’s all in the thin air. No official has been quoted by name, and the sources are not known, so it’s hard to establish the authenticity of such news.

The election season is a good time for the media industry to boost its readership and profit margins. The audience are fed with an unending dose of news, feature stories, and opinion pieces. This is also the time when you might come across such suspect news attributed to anonymous sources.

Thus, a good rule of thumb to follow is to refer to official sources for getting government related news and announcements – government websites, official YouTube channels such as PMO India, Ministry of External Affairs India, etc. The Modi government is extremely active in the digital media space, and therefore most of the ministries have their own official YouTube channels. There are multiple official X accounts as well devoted to various government departments and ministries.

DD news is also a good source of reliable information during the election season. ANI is also a good source of obtaining authentic news during elections. I am not asking you to depend only on government sources for news and insight, but rather suggesting that you should refer more to official sources of news for verifying news and announcements related to the government.

• Verify the authenticity of WhatsApp forwards

WhatsApp forwards have played a major role in spreading the fake news menace.

When WhatsApp began its Bharat operations, one of the very first controversies it got caught in was the rampant misuse of the platform for the spread of fake news in Bharat. WhatsApp then tweaked its features and privacy settings to put curbs on the message forwarding feature. But fake news forwarded through WhatsApp remains a legitimate concern, especially during the election cycle.

If you receive a controversial or suspicious WhatsApp forward during the election season, please don’t start sharing it without thought. Verify the facts online and only if you find some authenticity in the message, go ahead with sharing. If you can’t verify the fact and the forward seems dodgy, alert the person who sent it as well. Your timely intervention can perhaps prevent the cycle of fake news and disinformation from escalating further.

• Be cautious of deepfakes

Morphed images and deepfakes are increasingly becoming a norm on social media.

From Elon Musk to Donald Trump, all global bigshots have been victims of deepfake videos. Bharat is still relatively new to the deepfake game, but with celebrity deepfakes becoming common here, one wouldn’t be surprised to see the rampant circulation of the deepfakes of politicians during the election season.

As a citizen, you must be very cautious of videos of political personalities being shared online. These could be videos of their election speeches, poll promises, etc. Using deepfake technology, a person’s image and voice can be manipulated to create a fictitious video in which the physical setting might be the same as of original video, but their speech might be manipulated. For example, there might be a deepfake of PM Modi addressing an election rally where the voice will be manipulated to literally “put words into his mouth”, that is he would be seen as saying stuff that he probably never said. Sometime late last year, a video of PM Modi dancing garba had gone viral online, and the PM himself confirmed that he hadn’t danced garba since a long time. Thus, the video was deepfake.

Again, citizens cannot verify if the video is a deepfake or not. That is not their job either. But the best thing to do is to stay away from sensational videos showcasing politicians. Most of the videos being shared on social media do not have any source embedded. That is a red flag enough that the video might be fake.

Authentic videos from media outlets will always have the name of the source mentioned in the video. For example, if it’s an ANI video, the logo or the name will be visible at the extreme bottom or the top of the video.

Under any circumstances, you must refrain from sharing election videos you came across on social media.

• Do not make social media your primary source of news

This cannot be emphasized enough – do not make social media your primary source of news.

Social media is highly unreliable when it comes to news. It doesn’t have an ecosystem for identifying fake news; on the contrary social media algorithms promote sensational news stories to boost clicks. Thus, social media should never be your primary source of getting firsthand news.

It’s best to get news the traditional way – newspapers, TV news channels, etc. You can use social media platforms like YouTube to get opinions and analysis, but you mustn’t depend on only social media news, per se.

Facebook especially is not one of the most reliable platforms when it comes to news. The tech giant Meta has been in controversy multiple times over fake and controversial news items; thus, it is reportedly in the process of shutting down its news feature in a few countries because apparently, the news thing is giving it more trouble than revenue.

Thus, consume social media, but refrain from making it your primary source of news consumption, especially during the election cycle