Truth-ache hurts: Social media's 'love' for unverified news and the trolling that follows
Kambala jockey Srinivasa Gowda causing a storm and drawing attention of the world is no isolated incident. Accepting on face value without verifying whatever is popping up on social media and subjecting players to mindless trolling is the new norm, writes Swaroop Swaminathan
Veles is a small town in North Macedonia. Till 2016, it was affectionately referred to as ‘Tito’s Veles’. It was nicknamed like that as the former Yugoslav President, Josip Tito, liked the porcelain the town’s factories were making. Since 2016, Veles is more popularly referred to as the ‘fake news factory of the world’. Dozens of western publications have reported that teenage boys from Veles have been responsible for generating scores of fake news articles to earn cash from advertising. Business was so good in 2017 that ‘fake news’ was named as word of the year. Curiously enough, 2017 was also the year when fake news and misinformation went mainstream apropos India’s sporting landscape.
After India’s U-17 football team, who were preparing for the Under-17 World Cup, beat Italy’s U-17 side, social media hailed it as one of the country’s greatest achievements. Only after the dust settled did people realise that it wasn’t the official Italy side but a bunch of Italians who were 17 or under. The misinformation had already spread like an Australian bushfire so there was no point in reading the fine print. Why? A BBC research, commissioned in 2018, blamed it on a ‘rising tide of nationalism’. “The research found that facts were less important to some than the emotional desire to bolster national identity,” the media giant wrote on its website. “Participants in the research made little attempt to query the original source of fake news messages, looking instead to alternative signs that the information was reliable.”
This is supported by Jency Jacob, the managing editor of BOOM, an online space dedicated to fighting fake news and misinformation in India. “Nationalism does play a major role in how misinformation is spread and consumed,” he says. “This was most visible during the post-Pulwama attack on our CRPF soldiers and the subsequent war-like situation between the two countries. Even journalists and media houses succumbed to the pressure built around those incidents and ended up fanning the wave of nationalism to ensure they meet the demands of their readers.”
This was in evidence during July and August 2019, when Hima Das, a world junior 400m champion, won nine low-level meets. She did win gold — there was nothing fake about that — but she was the strongest athlete in all the events she had entered (it’s a bit like the Indian cricket fans going over the top after the national team wins a tri-series also featuring Indonesia and Maldives). Even after analysis pieces established the quality of competition, there was no reframing of the debate. The horse had already bolted. There was a fake sense of pride attached to Das’ achievements and sane voices were marginalised as a false narrative had already been established. Jacob explains. “Misinformation needs an emotional vehicle to travel and there cannot be a better one than nationalism where the love for your country can justify the planting of narratives even if it is not factually correct.”
In a nutshell, that’s how social media platforms operate in 2020. Post-truth, misinformation, cyberbullying, fake news, alternative facts... name it and it’s likely to be present on WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram — four of the six biggest social platforms worldwide. They have contributed to influencing democratic elections in western countries, broadcasting live a massacre at a place of worship and cheering the death of a popular politician among other things. Sport may have not felt the full impact but it’s getting there. “We have fact-checked several stories around sports and sportsmen, though a lot of them tend to be political in nature and surrounding cricket.
Ranging from Irfan Pathan attending a rally at Shaheen Bagh to Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni joining political parties, we have had to call out several fake news pieces related to cricket stars,” Jacob, explains. With a combined user base of 6.8 billion in four of the above-mentioned networks in 2020 according to Statista, a German website for statistics, exuberant and/or chilling over-the-top reactions are the main currency where instant gratification — through Facebook likes, Twitter retweets or Instagram heart emojis — is the only king.
Careful, reasoned analysis has made way for whatever fits into 280 characters; byte-sized hot-takes have gained predominance over common sense. Those takes were again in evidence this past week after news emerged that Kambala jockey Srinivasa Gowda supposedly covered a distance of 100m, while being pulled by a pair of buffaloes, in 9.55 seconds (existing world record over the distance is 9.58 seconds). Social media reacted like it had had one too many jagerbombs on a Saturday night. Before long, Twitter amplified his feat and the sports ministry had arranged his tickets and scheduled a trial at the Sports Authority of India campus in Bengaluru. Interestingly, Gowda himself maintained a sense of perspective with respect to the matter. “In Kambala race, heels play an important role whereas it is toes in a track race. Not just jockeys, but even buffaloes have a role. In track race, this is not the case.” He rejected the offer of a trial.
The curious thing in all of this is Gowda or any of his colleagues, may have broken the make-believe record previously as the sport has been around for ages. But without social media, nobody can say for sure. “Misinformation is a not a new phenomenon,” Jacob says. “It has existed over ages. But we have seen the issue of misinformation being discussed more widely now as the velocity of that poor or bad quality information spreading across geographies has seen an exponential change. This is due to multiple reasons but better means of communication and the invention of technology platforms have only helped in strengthening their roots.” To prove Jacob’s point, Nishanth Shetty, another kambala racer, clocked a time of 9.52 seconds over 100m, a few weeks after Gowda’s mark. Two Usain Bolts in a single month... think about the absurdity of it all. Misinformation like this is what put Veles on the world map in the first place.
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India’s sports minister is Kiren Rijiju. A few weeks after he had assumed office in May 2019, he came to be known by an uncharitable moniker: ‘social media minister’. It’s also indicative of how active Rijiju has been on it. Here’s a number to reflect it. Rijiju and fellow members of the sports ministry have offered four trials to India’s viral sporting sensations in the last seven months. Before Gowda, there was Mohammad Azajuddin and Jashika Khan, whose TikTok video of a cartwheel and a somersault invited over-the-top reactions from all and sundry in late August last year. Even Nadia Comaneci posted her two cents. “This is awesome.”
Within a week, SAI’s Eastern Centre had seen them in trials. The twist? Azajuddin and Khan weren’t even asked if they wanted to be retrained. They only knew freestyle dancing as Shekhar Rao, their dance teacher, had taught them hip hop and B-boying for free at an academy. Two weeks before them, there was Madhya Pradesh’s Bolt, Rameshwar Gurjar. He had supposedly run 100m in 11 seconds in a video. During trials, he only managed a lowly 12.9 seconds. That all the offers for trials followed after their videos went viral on Twitter and TikTok is reflective of the role social media is playing. Even if scouting for talent on social media is a novel approach, it’s ultimately problematic. It’s sending out the wrong message. Want to crack India’s sporting ecosystem? Create an account on one social media platform before buying a phone with a good camera. Leave the rest to the folks with itchy fingers, an account
on social media and a good internet connection.
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The death of August Ames in December 2017 is perhaps one of the gravest examples of how social media unwittingly came together to contribute to the suicide of somebody. Born Mercedes Grabowski, Ames posted a tweet explaining why she wouldn’t perform with an actor who had shot gay adult movies. After she was trolled for her comments — she was labelled a homophobe — she allegedly committed suicide by hanging in a park. After the suicide, her husband, Kevin Moore, blamed cyberbullying for pushing his wife over the edge. This type of toxic trolling on social media is another aspect of what’s wrong with the medium. While Ames’ death in a sports story may seem unrelated, it just goes to show what repeated trolling can do to a person. And quite a number of India’s sportspersons have felt the ire of trolls.
Just search for ‘Stuart Binny trolling’ on Google and the toxicity is there for all to see. He has faced everything from seemingly friendly banter to asking his wife Mayanti Langer, a cricket presenter, to commit suicide. This was what the all-rounder had to go through for giving away 32 runs in an over against West Indies in a T20I game. Another India cricketer who has gone through something similar is R Vinay Kumar. After failing to defend 19 runs in the final over for KKR against CSK in 2018, fans treated his social media handle like a boxing bag. The next morning, he sent his followers a message: “take it easy, it’s just a game... CHILL.”
Alas, that’s something most people forget as soon as they log in. Because of what it has become in the last few years, social media is likely to have an effect on sportspersons, according to Divya Jain, head of Department of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences at Fortis Healthcare in New Delhi. “How people perceive you on social media could be a possible factor these days,” she says. “How are my failures going to be perceived... with the presence of memes, any failure or success will get magnified.” It also depends on the mental make-up of the athlete. “Most of it, though, really depends on what kind of an athlete you are. Are you too much of a result-oriented person or are you more of an effort oriented person?”
Another Test player, Abhinav Mukund, has had his fair share of trolls. It got out of hand after a section of them targeted him for his skin colour. It forced the TN opener to pen an emotional message on the same platform. “I have been subject to a lot of name-calling and I have laughed and shrugged it off because I had bigger goals. (...) with the rise of social media, it has gone to a magnitude that I see people hurling abuses left, right and centre at something I have no control over. Fair isn’t the only lovely or handsome guys.”Mukund was intimate when this daily got in touch with him to speak about how he handles abuse on social media.
“People have the freedom to write what they want,” he says. “Earlier, it was just the odd abuse. These days, it keeps happening. But then again, most of them are attention seekers who want to get some mileage out of it. There is also the other side who shower you with praise. You learn to not live by it because social media is not a true reflection of what’s happening.“If one or two people say the same thing, it won’t make a difference. But if too many people say it, you start asking questions of yourself...
everybody has 140 or 280 characters. Even I have it.” A few, like Mukund, use it. The many nameless, faceless ones misuse it.
1835 One of the first recorded instance of fake news happened in 1835 when the New York Sun newspaper indulged in it to boost sales. This was reported by 1843 magazine in 2017.