India's Ruling Party Volunteers Use WhatsApp to Fuel Fake News Before Elections

time.com

4 points·wtmt··2 comments

[Note: while submitting this, I had to edit the title to reduce the length since the original is a lot longer than what HN allows]

This is very disturbing. The article also states that the other major party, The Indian National Congress (usually called as just “Congress”) also spreads fake news through WhatsApp, but there are a couple of differences:

* The BJP (the ruling party) has a lot more money while the Congress party is cash strapped.

* While both spread fake news and misinformation, religious hatred is spread by the BJP.

In a country with no data privacy laws and where literacy is low (not that literacy makes people better; there are many educated people with master’s degrees who believe all the fake news and spread it), people are being manipulated by those who have power and money. It doesn’t bode well for the country as a whole.

The fake news in the U.S. elections and elsewhere (including India) are reinforcing the machinery that’s used for fake news and propaganda. It’s becoming like a version of “1984”.

Wait so both your parties are doing their best and one is spreading religious while the other is spreading regional. And why would you post this India specific news here. Nobody cares about your country and nobody cares about you spreading fake news that only one party is doing it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com