Indian fact checking network focuses on fake news on ruling party, government

Indian fact checking network Misinformation Combat Alliance (MCA) focuses on fake news on ruling party, government

A coalition of fact checking sites that is positioning itself as the go-to grouping to address fake news on social media has collectively focused on misinformation that reflects poorly on the ruling party, its allies, and the Union Government, according to a review of the sites’ fact checks by The Hindu. 

The Misinformation Combat Alliance (MCA), a network of 14 digital publishers, provided a proposal last week to the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) to form a self-regulatory body that would provide fact checking services to social media platforms, reportedly with assistance from firms like Meta and Google. This would be in line with an anti-fake news provision in the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 that has prompted fears of censorship in the news media industry and civil society.

The MCA’s membership includes publications such as Boom Live, Factly, The Logical Indian, Vishwas News and The Quint. Some of the members do not appear to be publishing fact checks on their websites; membership in the MCA is open to any organisation that applies, according to the group’s website. 

The focus areas of those publications that do publish fact checks regularly reveals their potential priorities as part of a fact-checking network sanctioned by the government. The Hindu reviewed 142 articles published by these fact-checking sites from April 7 to April 13. Of these, the single largest category of 28 articles was fake news that painted the Union Government, the BJP, or the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in a negative light. 

The second largest category of fake news that these sites checked was international misinformation, such as visuals of Vladimir Putin in Buddhist garb generated by artificial intelligence, or a similarly computer-rendered visual of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in jail. Overall, there were 25 pieces of misinformation that were unrelated to India.

The third largest category included 20 articles on communal misinformation, such as an old video presenting alleged caste atrocities being presented as a recent development, or a fabricated letter from the RSS supposedly goading Hindu youth to “entrap” minority women. 

The network has busted more fake news on health and sports collectively, with 18 articles on these topics, than misinformation targeting Opposition parties and politicians at the Central level, which was the subject of 17 articles. (This was also in large part due to The Healthy Indian Project, a site which is dedicated to medical and nutritional misinformation.)