By Aashish Mishra

Kathmandu, Mar. 20: These days, it is hard to log into one’s social media account and not come across posts about COVID-19.
Most are mundane, people just sharing their opinions. Some, coming from true authorities like the Health Ministry and the World Health Organisation, are quite useful, serving to make people aware of the disease and the necessary measures to take.
But a considerable amount is misinformation -- lies or skewed facts -- presenting incomplete information or even total fabrications. These posts range from false claims about treatment or vaccination against the virus to conspiracy theories about how and where it originated. And these get thousands of likes, reactions and shares, meaning that these “fake news” reach a wide audience.
But why do so many people share them? “It’s because fake news plays with people’s fears and confirmation bias,” said Krishna Prasad Acharya, research fellow at the Centre for Media Research-Nepal. Acharya has extensive knowledge of all things on social media and has also worked as a digital media consultant and trainer with various national and international organisations.
Pundits usually blame ordinary “media illiterate” citizens for falling prey to such misinformation. But in the case of COVID-19, many individuals supposedly considered “media literate” like journalists, editors and academicians, can also be seen disseminating falsifications.
One such person was Dibash (name changed). He is a media commentator and regularly visits schools and colleges of the valley to talk about national and international media. However, on Sunday, he shared a post about consuming lemons to prevent catching the coronavirus on Facebook. A few days earlier, he had shared a YouTube video claiming that the coronavirus was man-made. Both of these claims are unverified rumours but he, and most of the people in his comment section (which included some journalists too), presented them as if they were fully proven facts.
The Rising Nepal approached him about his posts and at first he argued that they were credible and were reported by the BBC. Upon checking the BBC’s website, however, no such information was ever found to have been reported. The problem here was found to be a lack of cross-checking.
“A friend sent me the video and told me it was from the BBC. I took it at face value and shared it,” Dibash said. The two posts have since been deleted.
Dibash is representative of a larger population of media personnel, academicians and even some political leaders, knowingly or unknowingly, peddling misinformation online, because of what Sahina Shrestha, a graduate of Digital Media and Innovation, called “a lack of verification.”
“People who are supposed to be checking and rechecking truths are out there posting near-lies without so much as a second thought,” Shrestha said.
Acharya attributed this lack of verification to fear. “During times of crisis, people, media literate or not, are afraid and looking for information. So, when they come across news, they do not check them and just start sharing it with people they know without critically examining them.”
Dibash tried to downplay the posts, saying that they were “just on Facebook” and “others might not take them seriously.”
But according to Shrestha, Dibash, and others like him, do not have the luxury to brush off what they post online. “Their positions give them credibility and normal people look up to them for facts,” she said, adding, “What they post can cause mass alarm and result in counter-productive actions.”
But it is not too late to curb this spread of misinformation in Nepal. According to Acharya, the level of misinformation in the Nepali social media sphere is not as bad as in some other countries but it could easily reach there. So, steps must be taken.

These steps, he presented, included fact checking by the media and government agencies, followed by a quick rebuttal of any piece of misinformation. He also called on the government to proactively find the sources of misinformation and delete them.
But Shrestha cautioned against government actions translating into regulations. “Regulations can easily become restrictions and can be abused against people’s freedom of speech.” So, she called on the media to step up to the plate. “The media should start holding itself to account. It should scrutinise all the facts and journalists and editors must realise the sensitivity of their positions, whether on the page or online.”