Post-Truth, Misinformation & Fact Checking - A State-Sponsored Tale of Intimidation of Journalists - Media@LSE

Kalrav Joshi August 10t h, 2022
Post-truth, Misinformation & Fact checking: A state-

sponsored tale of intimidation of journalists
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Est imat ed reading t ime: 5 minut es
LSE MSc candidate Kalrav Joshi writes about state

harassment of journalists in what he describes as
post-truth India.
Franklin D. Roosevelt famously and passionately

argued, ‘The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.’
In post-truth India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the space for a
functioning democracy is shrinking and misinformation and
disinformation are all-pervasive, critics argue. It seems Roosevelt is not
only challenged but invariably proven wrong—as journalists in a post-truth
world are increasingly harassed, humiliated and terrorised for calling out
the lies of those in power using limited resources with no certainty when
they will be booked next. In distinctly chilling ways, time and again,
journalists have been reminded: to be fearful of the majoritarian state.
On June 26, before meeting with other world leaders at the G7 summit in
Germany, Modi signed the ‘2022 Resilient Democracies Statement’ and
emphasised the importance of freedom of expression. In his address,
Modi—perhaps quite rightly—also recalled the Emergency, a twenty-one-
month-long dictatorship that remains a ‘black spot’ on India’s ‘vibrant
democracy.’ He further concluded that the efforts to crush democracy
were a thing of the past while India today is ‘the mother of democracy.’
The irony of invoking the best practices of democracy in India was not
lost when he and his government asked Twitter India’s arm to take down
tweets by US-government funded non-profit Freedom House, which said
India blocks the internet. The twenty-three long days of incarceration of
Mohammed Zubair, renowned journalist and fact-checker, who
relentlessly exposes misinformation, disinformation and fake news and
hate machinery, is the latest travesty in ‘New India.’
Mohammad Zubair is the co-founder of the Alt News fact-checking site

and an expert at digital forensics known for researching the origins of
unknown images and videos, which are often exposed as misinformation
and disinformation around religion and caste, and unscientific myths. He
faced police action as a result of a 2018 tweet that contained a still
image of a popular comedy film from 1983, after a complaint was
registered from an almost inactive, anonymous Twitter handle called
‘Hanuman Bhakt’ (meaning worshipper of the Hindu deity Hanuman),
asserting that the image constituted a “direct insult” to Hindus.
Interestingly, in the almost four decades since this film was released, no
complaints about it proving offensive to any religions were made.
As The Wire investigated, his arrest was targeted by thousands of

accounts of the Tek Fog network and hundreds of bot accounts affiliated
with Vikash Ahir, state president of the Hindu Yuva Vahini and co-
convenor of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha in Gujarat and the man
responsible for targeting him. Both of these organisations are linked to
India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The timing and motive behind his arrest were clear, as critics observed:
state-sponsored intimidation for publicising hateful comments made by
prominent BJP officials. According to his associates, his arrest was in the
act of revenge for his extensively shared tweet pointing out the toxic
video of a debate on a national English language news channel Times
Now in May, highlighting national BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma‘s
hateful remarks against Prophet Mohammad. As seen from his viral
tweet, the purpose was solely to call out the news channel for peddling
hatred on primetime TV, with a pro-government slant.
Zubair’s tweet was widely noticed, leading to a major diplomatic row.

Seven countries, including oil-rich nations of the Middle East, lodged
strong protests with India, with some even demanding a public apology.
The outrage forced the BJP to suspend Nupur Sharma. In the month
since, BJP-linked Hindutva trolls weaponised Twitter—and the law—
seeking retribution against Zubair, with hashtags such as #arrestzubair
trending. This absurd theatre drew its legitimacy from trolls, soon
translating into chilling reality: lodging multiple cases against him in
different cities on flimsy charges and resurrecting old cases, most of
which related to his work on fact-checking and documenting hate
speech.
Law a tool of harassment?
Upholding the ideals of the constitution in a democracy, the Supreme

Court of India granted interim bail in all the cases and berated the state
police of Uttar Pradesh (UP), a BJP-ruled state, for relentlessly employing
the machinery of criminal justice and reminding that the criminal law and
its processes ought not to be instrumentalised as a tool of harassment.
Whether it is the attempt by the state (Uttar Pradesh) police to restrain
Zubair from tweeting as the bail condition or the sudden appearance of
the Solicitor-General in a lower court to argue for the denial of his bail, it is
evident how threatened government(s)—and its ecosystem—are by
journalists and fact-checkers. They are considered a significant threat to
the dominant narrative of the state, as they continuously debunk
misinformation which is often used as a tool to polarise society and rake
nationalist sentiments, and question the project of controlling the
information, which is at the heart of the flourishing of the post-truth
world.
Fact checkers as warriors?
As the Chinese proverb argues, one can seek truth from facts. The need,
urgency and importance of truth-seeking are more than ever, even if that
happens from small websites (like Alt News), as political sociologist
Christophe Jaffrelot elaborates. When fictional realities increasingly
dominate the public discourse for a shared political impulse and to feed
the political agendas, religious dogmas and jingoistic sentiments, fact-
checking websites are essential in combating fake news, propaganda,
and misinformation on digital platforms since they are the repositories of
verified information and facts. At a time when there is hollowing out of
the idea of truth, backed by state-sponsored nationalist agendas which
push to allow myths as ‘true history,’ facts are the only tenacious
warriors, as they help us move closer to truth and, thereby, justice.
While misinformation is a global challenge, it is significantly embedded

into the ruling BJP party’s communications and further compounded by
state-generated disinformation. An average Indian media consumer is
bombarded with false information as the mainstream media is often an
agent, sometimes even an enabler, in uncritically disseminating false
narratives and engaging in polarised partisan debates, often susceptible
for monetary reasons. Social media spaces have significantly
contributed to Hindu radicalisation and anti-Muslim hate, one of the BJP’s
ideological foundations. According to Zubair, one of the reasons behind
his target was his identity and religion (Muslim).
Hatred—bigoted or expedient or both—is not new. However, the capitalist

social media platforms—like WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter in
particular—are host to this hatred and misinformation, as they have
made almost negligible efforts to curtail it. An NGO called the
Association of a Billion Minds was the subject of a thorough inquiry, and it
emerged that in addition to advising Amit Shah, the current Home
Minister of India, on recommending candidates for elections, it also
engaged in significant online propaganda and creation of fake news sites.
Here, the larger purpose of the state is to capture and control the flow of
information, an important aspect where there is not enough space for an
individual voice and independent media, any consensus on the idea of the
truth, or shared histories and lived realities. It echoes German political
and legal theorist Carl Schmitt’s concept of political theology, where all
powers ultimately flow from the sovereign and are governed by the
principle of modern political order. Here, the sovereign decides the reality
of truth and what constitutes truth: exercising control over spaces where
truth is contested for modern political sovereignty.
Zubair is just one of a growing number of journalists, activists and

dissenters who have faced judicial arbitrariness and state-sponsored
intimidation. Whether it is the hounding of Siddique Kappan who was
arrested for a news story he never wrote while on his way to Hathras in
Uttar Pradesh to report on the horrific gang rape, or the prevention of
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sana Irshad Mattoo from Kashmir from
travelling abroad, independent media organisations in Kashmir—and
across the nation—are increasingly stopped from doing their work:
reporting on the ground and demanding government accountability. The
evidence keeps on mounting as journalists and editors are booked for
speaking truth to power and asking questions.
In 2022 the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders noted that the

freedom of the press in India has steadily declined, as India was ranked
150th out of 180 countries in the world press freedom index.
The fight against fake news, misinformation, and state-sponsored

intimidation should be necessary not only to the media scholars but also
to anyone interested in sustaining democracy, more so at a time when
the backsliding of democracy is the new norm. The main challenge
invariably lies in the solidarity of media professionals worldwide to raise
red flags on misinformation and fake news, call out the humiliation of
journalists, show solidarity (within and between countries) and come to a
collective consensus to restore media freedom as a universal paradigm.
This article reflects the views of the author and not those of the
Media@LSE blog nor of the London School of Economics and Political
Science.
About the author
Kalrav Joshi
Kalrav Joshi is a candidate for an MSc in Media, Communication and
Development in the Department of Media and Communications at
LSE. He writes on a wide range of topics including, democracy,
technology, politics, human rights, culture, education, society and
art. His research interests include audiences, artificial intelligence in
the future of news, development and social policy, international
media and global south, social movements, alternative media and
resistance, film theory and representation.
Posted In: Filtering and Censorship | Journalism
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Kalrav Joshi August 10t h, 2022

Post-truth, Misinformation & Fact checking: A state-

Est imat ed reading t ime: 5 minut es

LSE MSc candidate Kalrav Joshi writes about state

Franklin D. Roosevelt famously and passionately

Mohammad Zubair is the co-founder of the Alt News fact-checking site

As The Wire investigated, his arrest was targeted by thousands of

Zubair’s tweet was widely noticed, leading to a major diplomatic row.

Upholding the ideals of the constitution in a democracy, the Supreme

Fact checkers as warriors?

While misinformation is a global challenge, it is significantly embedded

Hatred—bigoted or expedient or both—is not new. However, the capitalist

Zubair is just one of a growing number of journalists, activists and

In 2022 the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders noted that the

The fight against fake news, misinformation, and state-sponsored

Posted In: Filtering and Censorship | Journalism

Name Email Sit e

Notify me of new posts by email.

WhatsApp Vigilantes: An exploration of citizen reception and

NOVEMBER 11T H, 2019

Why Propaganda Survives in the 21st Century: Eight Points

LSE Experts on the Truth, Trust and Technology Commission

Filtering and Censorship

Press freedom: how governments are using COVID as an

APRIL 22ND, 2021

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