The Battle for Developing Countries

In the United States, there are websites and applications that can flag inaccurate and misinformed information, but how do other countries battle the flood of false news? What about developing countries? 

A study focused on inaccurate news in India provided some insight for this occurrence, displaying that individuals in India have to explicitly dissect information themselves, and there are less protections in place that help them navigate misinformation. For example, applications like WhatsApp will not filter out encrypted social media information, so people are left to conquer the difficult task of fact checking these stories by themselves. During the 2019 election in India, politicians and political actors utilized this opportunity to spread propaganda and specifically targeted individuals, leaving Indian citizens to battle against the stream of political exploitation. Some features that contribute to individuals being increasingly susceptible to misinformation include "low levels of literacy and education, high levels of Internet access but naïveté about its use, access to a private and encrypted messaging application, and the graphic and salient nature of information" (ASPA, 2021). 

To research this occurrence, Sumitra Badrinathan conducted a study where she educated a total of 1,224 participants on how to identity false information, and she took into account that there would still exist partisan and party differences. In her results, "less than 10 percent [fell] for half the false stories, but when they [did], they tend to believe in pro-ruling party misinformation regardless of party affiliation," and "ruling party supporters were more likely to correctly identify false news stories when those stories are negative" (ASPA, 2021).  

This article showed how educating individuals on how to identity misinformation can effectively help people navigate false news. By educating people about the perils of misinformation, especially those in developing countries, we can hopefully curb politics' exploitation of misinformation and advocate for accuracy in news. 

Sources:
ASPA. (2021). The perils of social media politics. Political Science Now. https://politicalsciencenow.com/the-perils-of-social-media-politics/