These days we get news updates per minute. We have reached in such a world where it has become mandatory for us to know what is happening in the world every minute. This demand has put pressure on the news agencies to create the maximum buzzing content every minute. Who cares if the content is true or false as long as it brings audience to their platform.
Unfortunately during the pandemic, when everyone was expected to be responsible, people behaved irresponsibly by sharing N number of forwards. One of the very bad case study that we have today due to fake rumours is that of the poultry industry.
The poultry industry suffered a huge loss running into a few million rupees due to the fake news spread during the initial days of the pandemic.
Fake news or false news has also successfully destroyed a lot of businesses in the last few days. Facebook and whatsapp have been one of the biggest source of fake news.
Fear created by the media around us gave an opportunity to a lot of people to spread fake news. We need to understand that when we forward a message without verifying, we may be causing irrepairable damage to someone.
For Example: A couple of days ago, I received a whatsapp about a few employees of a few reputed Farsan Shops being Covid Positive and therefore we should be careful while buying anything from them.
I am not sure if this news was true or not and I really did not care because none of these shops were in the vicinity of my house. A couple of weeks ago, there was a news clip that was being circulated that Maharashtra, was going to impose Curfew. A news clip, which was released in March 2020, was doctored and people actually believed that there would be curfew imposed.
Yes we are aware of the effect of the pandemic but still that does not mean that you spread any message without reading or verifying the same. We all have our own responsibilities, business, jobs, which are striving hard to survive during this tough time and fake news is only encouraging businesses to shut down.
More damage has been caused to people physically, mentally, emotionally and finacially due to the stress caused by the Fake news than the real Pandemic or the Fever.
It is important for people to realise that when you forward a message without verifying, you may be causing an irrepairable damage to somebody’s reputation. Yes, to a certain extent it is largely our fault that we forwarded those false messages about Chickens being carriers of Corona Virus, which caused loss of millions of rupees to the Poultry Industry in India.
Now, before forwarding a message received from someone. Just take this simple step.
- Go to Google.com
- Search the context of the message
- Take an effort to read a couple of articles related to the topic.
- Then analyse and compare the content you have received in your forwarded message with the news found.
- If you find some truth only then forward the message otherwise just keep it to yourself.
A simple step or a simple effort taken by you may help some industries to survive. These are tough times for the Industries itself. The last thing that they want is defamation.
It does not take much efforts to act maturely and responsibily.
Now imagine, somebody is spreading a rumour about you in your society and due to which none of your neighbours wish to interact with you. Everybody slams their door on your face, gossips behind your back and talks trash about you to everyone. They do not co-operate with you because of some rumour they have heard about your behaviour.
That is exactly how the person about whom you are spreading the fake message feels. So during the time of the pandemic, be helpful to people and stop defaming them as you never know how Karma will come back to bite you.
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