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Avoid Fake news of covid-19


By now, most social media groups would have got an advisory from an entity called the Cyber Crime Portal of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). The advisory states how social media groups and their members should function during the Covid-19 outbreak. It lists five unverified messages related to the pandemic that must not be circulated. It also lists the legal provisions under which action can be taken against such violations, and provides a link to a form to report unverified postings and forwards. This ‘advisory’ is a representative of what’s going on: it is not issued by the MHA or any of its divisions and is one of the many ‘fake news’ that has been flooding social media platforms with the outbreak of Covid-19. The only official note that went out — an advisory to social media intermediaries on curbing false news and misinformation about coronavirus — was issued by the Ministry of Electronics and IT on March 20.