Fake News Is Now Officially A Crime In India; MP Reported Highest Fake News Victims, UP At #2

Of all the news that we get on our smartphones on a per-second basis, half of them are probably fake. In fact, a lot of studies have proven that fake news spread faster than genuine ones.

The issue of fake news has risen so high that the National Crime Statistics has, for the very first time, thought it worth including in the various categories under which crime statistics are tabulated. 

It was only yesterday when the Government of India thought of having a ‘Press Council’ of sorts so that online news would be regulated. 

Find out where fake news is being circulated the most in India right here!

Fake News Is Officially A Crime In India: 257 Cases Filed Against People Circulating Fake News

The National Crime Statistics for the year 2017 was recently released by the National Crime Records Bureau, wherein circulation of fake news has been included for the first time ever. 

This means that circulating fake news is now officially a crime in India. 

The reports state that from January 1, 2017, to December 31, 2017, as much as 257 cases were registered against people circulating fake news. 

At the top of the list is Madhya Pradesh, where 138 incidences of fake news were found with 151 victims. Uttar Pradesh and Kerala follow MP, with 32 incidences with 33 victims were found in Uttar Pradesh and 18 incidences with 19 victims in Kerala. 

Tamil Nadu has had 16 incidences with 11 victims, Karnataka had 5 incidences, and Telangana had 11 incidences. Andhra Pradesh, whose state government recently declared to sue media houses who publish news against the government without concrete evidence, has had 6 incidences.

The number of states where no case was registered for circulation of fake news is only 11. Also, the rate of the incidence of the crime of circulation of fake news was almost zero for all states except Uttar Pradesh, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Chandigarh. The rate of incidence of the crime is measured as the rate of incidence per one lakh people. 

Reports state that under the offence of circulating fake news, 3 juveniles have been arrested, and two of them were over 16 and below 18 years of age. 

Fake News Circulated On Social Media

We all are extremely familiar with the fake news that are circulated on social media platforms. In fact, a couple of fake news on Whatsapp led to multiple incidents of lynching in the nation, which, in turn, led to Whatsapp and the Govt locking horns over the data sharing regulations forced on it by the Government. 

As per the data published, Assam had 55 cases and Uttar Pradesh had 21 for circulating fake news on social media. Kerala had 12 such cases, Telangana had 8, Tamil Nadu and Andhra had 3 cases each. 

Seeing the crime rate of circulation of fake news go up rapidly, it would be good sense for all of us to stop forwarding news without checking if it is authentic or not. As per a fact-checking startup, Logically, as much as 50,000 fake news were published during the Lok Sabha elections and they were shared 2 million times.