
How to deal with fake news? The current response to fake news primarily revolves around three prongs — rebuttal, removal of the fake news item and educating the public. Rebuttal: It is a form of fact-checking wherein the fake news is debunked by pointing out errors like mismatch, malicious editing and misattribution. Removal of Fake news: Technical companies like Facebook and YouTube uses algorithms to proactively remove fake news from their platforms. Also, WhatsApp has put a limit on forwarding messages, so as to limit the spread to fake news. Educating the end-users to be more discerning consumers of news by informing them of verification tools so that they can ascertain the accuracy of a news item before sharing it. Another method that is propagated by the government, concerns tracking the ‘source’ of fake news. For this government proposes to de-anonymise all social media accounts. However, this provision is criticized on account of the invasion of privacy, curbing of ...