*And if people are not aware of this fact, is it getting misused.
As big bulk of population have jumped onto bandwagon of own-a-smartphone-frenzy, are we prepared to handle "news" being circulated via these channels1(also being termed as Agnotology2). Do they realize that not everything on Internet is True3, 4.For them this is their first experience of using internet, while the traditional computer system had net-nanny in place to avoid unwanted "exposure" for the kids, younger and naive generation what kind of checks do we have in place for this medium. Please note, check doesn't mean regulation/censorship but AWARENESS.
Or is it the case where, we are being overtly cautious and not able to scale actual village, small town psyche, which has survived, evolved and flourished through all these years.
Background:
As being said in this article5 "A rumour led to an accident." and how young generation has an access to these extra information6 apart from news and TV. Do we have the critical feedback loop in place which takes in every bit of news with a pinch of salt, and everything being shared on "groups"(watsapp, facebook) with rather fistful of salt7. While it is a possibility that now charged with the crime, they use this excuse to play innocence8, but is it actually the case.
Moreover, if it(understanding of how internet works) is missing, Quoting Ravish9 "If 100 people are abusing you on social media, 90 of them share the same ideology. Seeing their large numbers and synchronised behaviour, it seems this is happening in an organised way. This is an assumption, of course. I do not have any evidence."
if social media gets misused to pass things as news and facts. Could we try to get such an evidence, if there is any, or else, publish and state the findings anyway. While there are many reports of misuse of this medium across countries and religions10, 11, we are particularly interested in Indian scenario.
Following section is various things which could be tried.
Solutions
Public officials.
Official representations of departments on such channels to authenticate credibility of statement.
- cons: there could be overwhelming demand.
- but that shouldn't stop from trying.
- have a system to rate user based on his/her previous raised requests.
- Public awareness camps
Community based, karma system.
Additional to the things getting circulated, having a community based group where a reported incident or fact can be verified. Reddit, wikipedia, stackoverflow, hacker news and other online communities(most of them are online). Based on your actions and engagement you get certain rights to moderate things in more balanced and transparent way.
Bursting the FilterBubble12
Troll busters13
I am not so sure about this "vigilante" approach, sometimes AppTards(name give to ardent followers of AAP Political party) could be equally vicious, just doing it with bhakts(followers of right wing political party) is biased.
How to go about getting Data/Evidence
Collect data from Twitter, FaceBook, watsapp etc
Challenges:
- Will we be able to access data using simple APIs?
- Would it be still available, publicly?
- Can we reach out to these organizations for support, in terms of APIs and data?
Build a kind of graph of connected components.
In terms of:
- Who is following whom, is there a kind of "structure" to it.
- How does a news propagate through this mesh(in twitter terminology, organic impression and engagements).
- How does action of central-node ripple across branches.
- Can we map them with timeline, election polls, events, holidays
Challenges/Roadblocks:
- Data is very noisy, difficult to normalize.
- It would have different language and dialects.
- images/memes being shared.
Can we fit a mathematical model(non-linear dynamics) on such data?
I am not at all sure about what I mean by this. Just have read a few things about Ludwig's insect outbreak model and how it could fit a model on ecosystem of a forest to understand the "cycle"14.
On second thought, while the above mentioned ecosystem has dependency between worms and tree, I am not sure we will have similar variables at play with this violent religious incidents.
Footnotes:
http://www.newsweek.com/2015/04/03/manipulating-wikipedia-promote-bogus-business-school-316133.html Kolbe believes the site's flaws are felt more keenly outside the West. "People in the developing world don't always understand how Wikipedia is created. It's such a credible website, it comes so high up the search rankings-people think it's just another encyclopedia."
It's all over the internet." http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/29/love-jihad-india-one-man-quest-prevent-it