Talking about false information, it is not a new thing. I was going through an article about the history of fake news and came to know that it’s been the part of media history since the printing press was made. To increase the sale of newspapers, titbits news were created and people love to read those fake stories, even recommend others. Different countries used this as weapon against rivals to mislead the people around the globe. Political parties play an important role in spreading false information about each other through different channels. Fake news was already a popular thing long before social media.
Since my childhood, I remember many cases of fake news. There was no social media at that time but still people like to spread incomplete information or spread fake news just for fun. One of the case I would like to share is from 2001, when we opened a general store in our area. My brothers get along well with neighbors and in a short time, became friends. A neighbor shop’s uncle was a jolly person and always busy in joking around. One day, he got late and didn’t opened his shop on time. Someone put a note on the shutter of his shop that he died of a heart attack. There were no mobile phones to get in touch with a person at that time. We all were shocked. One of the shopkeeper had uncle’s landline number so he called, uncle’s son answered and got worried due to this information. He said his father left home a while ago but was all right then, how come this note was pasted there. There was a chaos between all the shopkeepers and were trying to figure out who pasted that note and if it is true or some funny joke. While we all were discussing on it, all of a sudden uncle arrived on his bike and asked what is going on? We all were happy to see him but at the same time, confused and puzzled. When uncle saw that note on his shop, he started laughing and said who beep beep pasted this here, I am not gonna leave this world soon and that easy. He got late as he went to the market to buy some material for his shop. He took it all in a fun way but seriously, it was not funny at all. His son also rushed to the shop and seeing his father, feel relaxed. That moment was so emotional. We never know who did that.
From the beginning, I never trust or believe any news on social media. No matter whatever the news is. I just use social media platforms to pass the time and have fun. On many occasion, my friends or my colleagues show me the latest news on their feed page but I always prefer to get it checked through some valuable sources, checking it on google but the search result shows mixed reviews and news so, finally it is upto you to believe it or not. For me, holidays matter so when it is about Eid holidays, I do check government notice on their official page to plan for my holidays. There a lot of rumors and fake notices roaming around the social media platforms.
In Covid-19, I was shocked to see so much of disinformation and fake news spreading all over the globe just to get benefits and funds from International agencies. My friend updated fake status of covid positive to get 15 days off from work, it was so common and easy to get leaves this way. Fake news do hurt people and sometimes even gets worst. I heard a lot of stories which cost a life in the end just because of fake news or story uploaded on social media. Celebrities face such situation every now and then. Recently, I saw on FB that Usman Shinwari died of a heart attack during a match. He is an international cricket player of Pakistan. When I searched in deep, I saw he is alive but a club cricketer with same name actually died during a match. In both the cases, it is a sad news but it actually came up as a controversial statement and people started searching for a person who is alive and on the other hand, did not pay attention or pray for the one who actually died. It’s all mind games with incomplete information and I still didn’t figured it out that what they actually get by doing all this bogus stuff. In my opinion, it should be illegal and fall under a crime category. Cybercrime investigators and other well-known agencies should take action on such posts. I still think that it can be stopped if we stop spreading and sharing those fake news post from our accounts before checking it thoroughly.
