Rise of fake news and echo chambers

In 2009, life was simple. You would get news from the newspaper or its online avatar, the political buzz from television channels or your cousin who knows someone who knows someone in the local MP’s office, and “Good Morning” or “Good Night” greetings over SMS on your phone. If there was something important, it had to come from a top media house, otherwise you risked getting snubbed by your grandfather at the dinner table. Finding out the national anthem wasn’t voted the best in the world was a moment of embarrassment. A decade later, everything has gone wrong. Credible sources of information appear to hold little value anymore as people are buried under an avalanche of information – most of it generated by spam bots, skilful manipulation algorithms, or groups people working at the behest of political parties – and facts are lost in a sea of anonymous forwarded messages, and overnight mushrooming of “news channels” and “news websites” that end up confirming biases. As a result, the biases and impulses that would earlier be shared in whispers in locker rooms have now grown into the deafening roar of street rallies, mob violence and family WhatsApp… Read full this story

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