‘Beware of WhatsApp, social media; even intelligent people fall prey to fake news’

coastaldigest.com web desk

October 29, 2018

Bengaluru, Oct 29: Several media giants, who participated in the panel discussion on ‘Fake News: Whose lie is it anyway?’ during the Bangalore Literature Festival on Sunday, expressed grave concern over the menace.

Pratik Sinha, co-founder of AltNews, an online fact-checking website, stressed on the role of social media in the spread of fake news. He said the broader issue was that of the excess of information brought about by increasing internet connectivity across the country.

Warning against downplaying the impact of WhatsApp and social media platforms, he said even in large parts of society that are offline, WhatsApp messages have a serious impact.

“It is the influential who can afford smartphones and their word carries weight. Thirty people were killed in recent times because of WhatsApp messages about alleged child-lifters. It is real,” he said.

Mukund Padmanabhan, Editor, The Hindu, said WhatsApp was probably the biggest vector of fake news today, and not just the uninformed, but even intelligent people could fall prey to it.

He said rather than waiting for technology solutions or government intervention, what would work was awareness among citizens “that not everything we see is true”.

He said that the pervasiveness of clickbait headlines in the world of instantaneous news, when everyone must be one nanosecond ahead of the other, had impacted journalism. “There is not much introspection over this,” he said, and advocated a culture of media houses learning to seek apology for mistakes and misinformation.

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DK-Udupi local authorities' constituency by-poll: 4 candidates – Cong, BJP, SDPI, Ind – in fray

News Network

October 8,2024

Mangaluru: The by-election to the legislative council from the Dakshina Kannada and Udupi local authorities' constituency will be a contest among four candidates. An independent candidate, Muhammed Riyaz, has withdrawn his nomination on Monday, the last day for withdrawal.

Deputy commissioner Mullai Muhilan MP stated that candidates Kishore BR (BJP), Raju Poojary (Congress), Anwar Sadat S (SDPI), and Dinakar Ullal (independent) will be in the fray.

Polling will be held at 392 booths in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts between 8am and 4pm on Oct 21.

A total of 6,032 voters from Dakshina Kannada and Udupi are eligible to vote. While there will be 234 polling booths in Dakshina Kannada, Udupi will have 158 stations. Gram panchayat members, corporators of the Mangaluru City Corporation, members of city municipal councils, town municipal councils, town panchayats, MLAs, MLCs, and Lok Sabha members are eligible to vote.

Election observer of the Election Commission of India (ECI), Pankaj Kumar Pandey, reviewed the poll preparations at the deputy commissioner's office on Monday. He issued directions to officials regarding arrangements to be made during the election and counting of votes.

The deputy commissioner stated that out of 6,032 voters, 3,127 are women and 2,905 are men. He said the counting of votes will be held at St Aloysius PU College in the city on Oct 24.

Udupi deputy commissioner Vidya Kumari K, city police commissioner Anupam Agrawal, Dakshina Kannada ZP CEO Anandh K, Dakshina Kannada SP Yathish N, Udupi SP Arun K, and additional deputy commissioners Santhosh Kumar G and Mamatha Devi were present.

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