The 2022 FIFA World Cup and 2022 Gujarat assembly elections were the most popular topics of false and misleading claims in November, accounting for 12.8 per cent and 10.3 per cent of all our fact-checks, respectively.
BOOM did 117 fact-checks in the month of November, in English, Hindi and Bangla, each of them debunking a unique false or misleading claim.
Our analysis revealed that most of such claims we encountered were political in nature, accounting for 35.9 per cent of our fact-checks, followed by communal and sports-related claims, accounting for 17.9 per cent and 13.7 per cent, respectively. The uptick in sports-related claim last month was mostly linked to the ongoing FIFA world cup in Qatar.
Types Of Claims And Purpose Of Sharing Them
We also categorised the claims according to the type of manipulation, and the purpose of sharing them.
We incorporated an existing typology provided by Claire Wardle of First Draft News, who categorised 'fake news' into the following types: Satire or Parody (also Humour), Misleading Content, Imposter Content, Fabricated Content, False Connection, False Context and Manipulated Content.
The most common type of manipulation was found to be 'misleading content' - where genuine information is twisted to frame an issue or individual, accounting for 47 per cent of all the claims we investigated.
The second type of deceptive information was in the form of 'false context' - sharing information out of their original circumstance which affects the overall understanding, making up 23.1 per cent of all the claims we saw.
The third type of false information, 'manipulated content' - alteration of genuine information, contributed to 14.5 per cent of all claims.
Yet another categorisation we made was according to the purpose of sharing manipulated information.
Going through all the claims, we identified six different purposes - demographic anxiety, smear campaign, fake sensationalism, and media misreporting.
We defined each of these categories as the following:
- Demographic Anxiety - Creating animosity against specific demographic groups.
- Smear Campaign - An attempt at damaging the public image of individuals/organisations.
- Fake sensationalism - Presenting information in a way that is intended to provoke/excite individuals, and appeal to their emotions.
- Misreporting - Media houses sharing dubious information to draw public attention and engagement.
The most commonly identified purpose of spreading deceiving information last month was to create 'fake sensationalism', making up to 51.3 per cent of all the claims.
The second most prominent type was 'smear campaign', accounting for 32.5 per cent of the claims, followed by the third most prominent type, 'demographic anxiety' (15.4 per cent).
Images Preferred By Political Claims, Videos For The Rest
Videos and images continue to remain the preferred medium of spreading false claims, shared with 46 per cent and 37 per cent of the claims we debunked. Texts account for 17% of the claims.
Images were mostly shared with political claims, while communal, alarmist and sports-related claims were shared mostly with videos.