Project: Making sense of disinformation on social media in India
Date: September 2021
The rapid spread of disinformation can distort and hinder social progress and cohesion. In this case study, we uncovered stories that depict the phenomenon of disinformation in India and identify the signals that could help those in power prevent the digital civil war from creating real-world casualties.
The rapid spread of disinformation can distort and hinder social progress and cohesion. In this case study, we uncovered stories that depict the phenomenon of disinformation in India and identify the signals that could help those in power prevent the digital civil war from creating real-world casualties.
Unravelling India’s information
disorder on social media
India has the world’s second-largest online population. As a consequence of this digital boom, social media networks and media platforms have been identified as the epicentre of India’s information problem. Across the country, content has been manipulated into click-bait headlines, misleading captions and fabricated imagery, often issued by imposter authors, to further religious, political or social agendas. This phenomenon has become the root cause of degenerating societal cohesion, which has been likened by some commentators to a public health crisis due to the perceived dangers it can create.
At Ripple Research, we sought to unearth the contours of disinformation to help global audiences pick out the signal in the noise across online activity relating to disinformation. We believe this is critical in order to help actors and agents on all sides discern a path to dealing with the problems of misinformation.
Our approach
Applying our unique high tech and high touch approach, Ripple Research assembled a dataset of almost a million online conversations and mentions in India around disinformation over a two-month period from May to June 2021. These deep insights included unprompted and unstructured data based on people’s public conversations, perceptions and preferences.
Conversation volume
813.63 k
Unique authors
177 k
Total reach
+1 m
The unprompted nature of these insights means that in comparison to traditional techniques like surveys or polling, the data can reduce confirmation bias, empathy gaps or social desirability bias.
To make sense of this large volume of conversations and the underlying intertwined narratives, we identified and thematically organised six major themes of disinformation.
Asaram Bapu
Altnews and Zubair
Ram Mandir scam
Sushant Singh Rajput
Citizenship amendment bill and the Delhi riots
Farmers protests
We subsequently separated these themes into four unique drivers behind the spread of disinformation on social media:
Circumstantial
Ideological
Targeting political incumbent
Targeting political opposition
What we discovered
Each case study ranging from the Delhi Riots to the farmers protests and Ram Mandir scam revealed how information can be manipulated to hamper societal progress, erode trust and incite unnecessary hatred that can have long-term implications.
Each story speaks to existing social cleavages in India applied to political, religious and social contexts. They indicate that the digital civil war and distortion of truth online is creating real-world casualties; whether that be through oppressive violence to quell democratic protests, religious hate crimes or the impact on mental health including acceleration in anxiety and trauma-related disorders.
The signals identified in the Ripple Research data are salient for businesses, policymakers and civil society if they are to better understand how disinformation complicates resolution to critical issues. These findings can then be applied to make suggestions for ways of mitigating and overcoming the current levels of distortion.