NEW DELHI: Looks like, PM Narendra Modi is not going to give up his social media accounts.
Instead on March 8, on the occasion of Women's Day, he is going to give away his social media accounts to inspiring women.
https://twitter.com/narendramodi/status/1234746833831780353
Modi on Monday surprised everyone after he tweeted that he was thinking of giving up social media accounts. “This Sunday, thinking of giving up my social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & YouTube. I will keep you all posted,” PM Modi tweeted. Minutes after the tweet, social media went abuzz as to why the Prime Minister was thinking about leaving social media platforms. There is speculation that the reason for thinking of going away from social media might be the alleged misuse of it to spread rumors. Recently the national capital witnessed heavy use of social media to propagate rumors which resulted in amplified effects of riots in Delhi.
A lot of people have suggested the misuse of social media as a significant contributor to Delhi riots.
Researchers have found that people who repeatedly encounter a fake news item may feel less unethical about sharing it on social media, even when they don’t believe the information, according to a new study.
In a series of experiments involving more than 2,500 people, the study found that seeing a fake headline just once leads individuals to temper their disapproval of the misinformation when they see it a second, third, or fourth time.
“The findings have important implications for policymakers and social media companies trying to curb the spread of misinformation online,” said study researcher Daniel A. Effron from the London Business School.
“We suggest that efforts to fight misinformation should consider how people judge the morality of spreading it, not just whether they believe it,” Effron added.
The researchers noted that efforts to curtail misinformation typically focus on helping people distinguish fact from fiction.
Facebook, for example, has tried informing users when they try to share the news that fact-checkers have flagged as false.
But such strategies may fail if users feel more comfortable sharing misinformation they know is fake when they have seen it before. The researchers theorize that repeating misinformation lends it a ‘ring of truthfulness’ that can increase people’s tendency to give it a moral pass, regardless of whether they believe it.