Media literacy necessary for countering fake news phenomenon

News Desk

ISLAMABAD: Improving media literacy and fact-checking is crucial for countering the fake-news phenomenon in society, said Media Specialist Masroor Gillani.

Mr Gillani was delivering a lecture at Information Service Academy (ISA), Islamabad on Friday.

He said that fake news could be tackled by media literacy and fact-checking. Every individual could check fake news by using online digital tools, Mr Gillani added.

The media specialist further said the spread of fake news could also be stamped by verifying the content of news, image and video.

“People have been receiving many messages on various social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and forward these to their friends and in groups without any verification which later proved fake.

Mr Gillani was of the views that fake news phenomenon was not a new rather it was old as human history. Fake and false news was spread through social media networking aimed at misleading the people, he said.

The authenticity of the texts, images and videos could be checked through digital tools like reverse image search, INVID (a knowledge verification platform) and Google.

Mr Gillani said the role of fact-checking was more important in current situation as mostly the people shared misinformation due to various reasons including political, financial and psychological.

Responding to a question about presence of a non-effective mechanism to counter fake news, he said we needed more laws and its effective implementation. To another question about political polarization, he said society could not shape in a day’s rather it took centuries for development.