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ABSTRACT
Misinformation on social media in the 2019 general election not only reached people through forwarded WhatsApp messages, but often circulated online through legitimate political entities. Our research utilizes social media posts from an archive of fact-checked articles , circulated widely and classified as fake or dubious by fact-checking organizations, in the campaign period from early March to late May 2019. Our sample of stories posted by major parties across the political spectrum shows that they incorporated online misinformation into their campaign strategies, which included both lies about their opponents as well as propaganda and other positive-themed information to show themselves in a good light, with the vast majority (N = 41) from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Indian National Congress (INC); both parties were also sources and targets of misinformation. We discuss examples of misinformation as well as the predominant topics of BJP- and INC-targeted misinformation, including the campaign, corruption, religion, celebrity, nationalism, gender and development.
Disclosure statement
The authors acknowledge no financial interests or benefit arising from this research.
Notes
1. Pal and Panda, “Twitter in the 2019 Indian General Elections: Trends of Use across States and Parties.”
2. IAMAI, “India 2nd Only to China with 451 Mn Monthly Active Internet Users.”
3. Majó-Vázquez et al., “Online Audience Engagement with Legacy.”
4. Ibid.
5. Thorson, “Belief Echoes: The Persistent Effects of Corrected Misinformation.”
6. Berinsky, “Truths and Reality: A Study of Political Misinformation.”
7. Kuklinski et al., “Misinformation and the Currency of Democratic Citizenship.”
8. Ibid.
9. Yadav, “Trolled, Abused, Mocked, Bullied – Rahul Gandhi Offers a Window into Battling Mental Health.”
10. Shin et al., “The Diffusion Of Misinformation On Social Media: Temporal Pattern, Message, And Source.”
11. Akbar et al., “Temporal patterns in COVID-19 related digital misinformation in India.”
12. Chaturvedi, “2019 -The Year Of Fake News.”
13. Sobhy, “Understanding Fact Checking as a Global Phenomenon.”
14. Suiter, “Post-truth Politics.”
15. Bellamy, “What is Information Warfare?”
16. Mutz, “Political Psychology and Choice.”
17. Leege and Wald, “Meaning, Cultural Symbols, and Campaign Strategies.”
18. See note 16 above.
19. Ibid.
20. See note 17 above.
21. Tornberg, “Echo Chambers And Viral Misinformation: Modelling Fake News As Complex Contagion.”
22. Stevenson, “Facebook Admits It Was Used to Incite Violence in Myanmar.”
23. Benkler et al., “Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation and Radicalization in American Politics.”
24. Flynn et al., “The Nature and Origins of Misperceptions: Understanding False and Unsupported Beliefs about Politics.”
25. Marda and Milan, “Wisdom of crowd: Multistakeholder perspectives on the fake news debate”, 1–2.
26. Rajput, “Social Media and Politics in India: A Study on Twitter Usage among Indian Political Leaders”, 63–69.
27. Pal, “Twitter and the Rebranding of Narendra Modi.”
28. Ibid.
29. Jaffrelot, “The Modi-centric BJP 2014 Election Campaign: New Techniques And Old Tactics”, 151–166.
30. Rajadesingan, “Leader or Party? Personalization in Twitter Political Campaigns during the 2019 Indian Elections.”
31. See note 1 above. Across States and Parties.”
32. Jaffrelot, “The Modi-centric BJP 2014 Election Campaign: New Techniques And Old Tactics.”
33. Brummette et al., “Real All About It: The Politicization of Fake News.”
34. Farooq, “Politics of Fake News: How WhatsApp Became a Potent Propaganda Tool in India”; Arun, “On WhatsApp, Rumours, and Lynchings.”
35. Brandtzaeg et al., “Context Collapse in News.”
36. Bakshy et al., “Exposure to Ideologically Diverse News And Opinion On Facebook”; Robereta, “Evolution of an emergent concept: Characteristics of Fake news and possible implications for education system.”
37. Banaji and Bhat, “WhatsApp Vigilantes: An Exploration Of Citizen Reception And Circulation Of Whatsapp Misinformation Linked To Mob Violence In India.”
38. Thorson “Changing Patterns of News Consumption and Participation”, 473–489.
39. Pennycook and Rand, “Who Falls For Fake News? The Roles Of Bullshit Receptivity, Over Claiming, Familiarity, And Analytic Thinking.”
40. Lazer et al., “The Science Of Fake News.”
41. Ibid.
42. Ibid.
43. Allcot and Gentzkow, “Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election.”
44. Ohlheiser, “This Is How Facebook’s Fake-News Writers Make Money”; Kshetri, “The Economics of ‘Fake News’.”
45. “IFCN Code of Principles.”
46. Ibid.
47. Duke Reporter’s Lab, “Fact-checking.”
48. “Verified Signatories of the IFCN Code of Principles.”
49. Ibid.
50. Facebook Journalism Project, “Facebook’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program.”
51. Graves and Amazeen, “Fact-Checking as Idea and Practice in Journalism.”
52. See note 24 above.
53. Walter and Murphy, “How to Unring the Bell: A Meta-Analytic Approach to Correction of Misinformation.”
54. Garrett et al., “Undermining the Corrective Effects of Media-Based Political Fact Checking? The Role of Contextual Cues and Naïve Theory.”
55. Ecker et al., “Do People Keep Believing Because They Want To? Preexisting Attitudes And The Continued Influence Of Misinformation.”
56. See note 5 above.
57. Cassino and Lodge, “The Primacy of Affect in Political Evaluations.”
58. Nelson and Oxley, “Issue Framing Effects on Belief Importance and Opinion.”
59. Tattle, “Tattle Civic Technologies.” https://gettattle.app/
60. One important item of methodological importance is that our study cites individual actors who send out misinformation only if they are public figures and cited in a published news item for their part in propagating fake news. For our purpose, journalists, media anchors, and politicians are public figures.
61. The majority of the users, pages and groups can be classified by their party-leaning as they consisted of fan pages, affiliated organizations, persons and party supporters, but as our paper only cites individual actors if they are public figures and/or cited in a published news item for their part in propagating fake news, we chose not to map them with parties.
62. Mahapatra and Plagemann, “Polarisation and Politicisation: The Social Media Strategies of Indian Political Parties.”
63. Times Fact Check, “Fact Check: Did Crowd Chant “Modi-Modi” When Asked To Say “Rahul Gandhi Zindabad” In Congress Rally?”
64. Bozarth et al., “From Greetings to Corruption: Politicians, Political Parties, and Tweeting in India.”
65. Zee News, ““Victory Day” against Treason as Delhi Police filed charge sheet against Kanhaiya Kumar and others for anti-national slogans.- Part 1.”
66. Pal et al., “A Friendly Neighbourhood Hindu.”
67. Tweet by Garga Chattrejee (@GargaC), April 27, 2019
68. Hansen, “The Saffron Wave: Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India.”
69. Pal et al., “How BJP Fused With Strong India In 2019.”
70. Verniers and Ammassari, “Lok Sabha election results 2019: At 14.6%, Lok Sabha to have most women ever.”
71. Boom Fact Check Team, “Porn Star’s Picture Falsely Shared.”
72. Panda et al., “Topical Focus of Political Campaigns and its Impact: Findings from Politicians’ Hashtag Use during the 2019 Indian Elections.”
73. Pal, “Legitimacy, Support and Endorsement: Narendra Modi’s Social Media Engagement with Celebrities.”
74. Mukherjee, “Haystacks, Helicopters and Hema Malini: Will Mathura Choose “Dream Girl” in Lok Sabha 2019?”
75. Ansolabehere et al., “Does Attack Advertising Demobilize the Electorate?”
76. Patel, “Photoshopped: Rahul Gandhi Visits a Store with the Poster.”
77. Chaudhari, “Decoded: The Business of Facebook Pages – Selling Modi, God, Patriotism and More.”
78. Mclaughlin, “How WhatsApp Fuels Fake News and Violence in India.”
79. Lapowsky, ““Fake News Victims” Meet With Twitter and Facebook.”
80. See note 37 above. of Citizen Reception and Circulation Of WhatsApp Misinformation Linked to Mob Violence in India.’
81. Tenenboium-Weinbalatt, “Rethinking Truth through Truthiness.”