India’s Floating Disinformation during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Viral diffusion of fake news is very significant in India with its 1.38 billion population, because it impacts how the public receives information required to make responsible, informed decisions and shape views on socio, economic, and political issues. Fake news is not a new phenomenon on Indian social media. The availability of low-cost Internet via mobile networks in India has resulted in a significant growth in the number of social media users (Banerjee, 2021). One out of six pieces of COVID information generated from India in 2020 was fake, which makes India the country for the source of most COVID misinformation. India’s unfortunate distinction as the purveyor of misinformation is tied to the higher Internet penetration rate and increasing social media consumption. India has almost 323 million Internet users, out of which 67% are urban and rest 33% are rural. Lack of media literacy remains one of the key factors in the spread of misinformation during the pandemic.