GUWAHATI: As the world battles the deadly Coronavirus, it has been struggling to fight the menace of Fake News for the longest time.
With over a week of quarantine and self isolation for countries like India, and longer in several other parts of the world, people have shared various kinds of content on social media platforms and messaging apps, ranging from cures to medication, to videos of celebrities and other “miracles”.
A set of photos suggested that dolphins and swans had “come back” to reclaim a home that was once theirs. However, this photo of the animals at the Venetian canals was not real.
The swans in the viral posts regularly appear in the canals of Burano, a small island in the greater Venice metropolitan area, where the photos were originally taken. The “Venetian” dolphins on the other hand were filmed at a port in Sardinia, in the Mediterranean Sea, hundreds of miles away. Read more.
A tweet by Kaveri Ahuja went viral as it was liked by over 1M people
Here's an unexpected side effect of the pandemic - the water's flowing through the canals of Venice is clear for the first time in forever. The fish are visible, the swans returned. pic.twitter.com/2egMGhJs7f
— Kaveri (@ikaveri) March 16, 2020
Beyond this, there is also the fear of spread of fake medication and cures.
After a gruelling week of quarantine and isolation, people seem to craving positivity which is why they might be sharing content like this. Although the Coronavirus will eventually be dealt with a vaccine, we wish the process for tackling fake news was equally simplified.
