Fake news steals cyber space ahead of polls

With social media platforms becoming inevitable for all political parties in their campaigns for the upcoming parliamentary elections, the parties are struggling to tackle the false news being spread on these platforms.

In the information war among parties and the consequent bombardment of videos, messages and memes, the public are often left confused about what to believe and what not to. One of the first such formally reported complaints in Tamil Nadu has come up in Madurai parliamentary constituency where the Communist Party of India (Marxist) reported that blatantly false statements attributed to its candidate, the Sahitya Akademi award-winning writer Su. Venkatesan, were being circulated in the social media by miscreants.

Derogatory remarks and comments belittling the Chithirai festival, which coincides this year with the polling date, were posted as Mr. Venkatesan’s comments, along with his photograph.