Meet the fake news crusaders busting social media myths, one story at a time

In 2008, Rahul Roushan, a journalist turned management student, started a spoof news website Faking News a comical spin on happenings around the world. There was nothing more to the hugely popular satirical website except innocent humour. In less than a decade, unlike the way Roushan had conceived it, social media and at times traditional media have seen a surge of information, often masquerading as news, and spread deliberately with less than honest intention. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter and instant messaging services such as WhatsApp have lent the phenomenon unprecedented reach and speed.

So a video of a group of people killing a small time Bangladeshi politician got forwarded as that of a Hindu priest being killed by Muslim men in West Bengal. Or a footage of atrocities committed on Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar was spread as violence against Muslims in Kokrajhar in Assam. If the purpose of such "misinformation" is to spread anger and violence, at other times information is created and spread to bolster a popular narrative. The GPS chip in a Rs