Rights organizations in India use fact-checking training to fight the disinformation and misinformation that thwarts local communities in obtaining their rights. The beautiful scenery of the northern part of West Bengal sometimes obscures the difficulties that the inhabitants endure over forest and water rights and, now, the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sundarsing Rabha is a 35-year-old activist, local community leader and a forest-dweller who has been fighting for the rights of the Rabha tribe for over 15 years.
The Rabha tribe has been credited with conserving the forests in Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri and parts of Darjeeling since the mid-19th century.
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The Atreyee River, which supplies irrigation water to Balurghat, a small town in West Bengal, has faced drought conditions due to the construction of a dam. Tuhin Subhra Mandal, an environmental activist and founder of the non-profit Dishari Sankalpa, is concerned about the misinformation that is rampant concerning water issues.
Tuhin Subhra Mandal is concerned about the disinformation related to water issues in his community. Credit Internews
He shares a Facebook video of another river, the Kaveri in Tamil Nadu. The video claims that the river “miraculously” enters a drought-hit village a day before Navratri, a Hindu festival. Tuhin says he wants people to use scientific information when evaluating the water issues (the additional water is most likely due to an intentional release from a dam). “These videos only add to superstitious practices and harm rivers.”
Tuhin and other fellow volunteers – who often refer to themselves as “water warriors” – participated in a misinformation training with Soma.
“The FactShala training helps us a lot because when we are in the field, a lot of people ask us about manipulated images they think are true and often we don’t know how to counter the false claims,” says Tuhin.
After attending the training, Tuhin started busting myths and misinformation related to the environment in Uttar Patra, a local Bengali publication that he runs to make people aware of environmental issues. He wants people to analyze the issues scientifically so they can critically assess videos that might add to superstitious practices.
Green Jalpaiguri, an NGO, provides medical supplies to the community while helping to fight disinformation. Credit Internews
Green Jalpaiguri, a non-profit organization serving the poor in Jalpaiguri, has provided oxygen and ambulance services during the pandemic to people who have few resources.
Through his work, Ankur Das, the general secretary of Green Jalpaiguri, realized that misinformation about COVID-19, particularly the vaccine and its side effects, was spreading uncontrollably.
“People look up to us. When we go to communities to distribute what was donated, people approach us to ask about the veracity of social media information,” he says.
Ankur invited Soma to conduct a training for members of his organization and other citizens of Jalpaiguri.
“Knowing more about misinformation and how to combat it through FactShala helped us dispel rumors and motivated people to get vaccinated along with their family members.”
“The FactShala training helped me in my mission to make citizens aware of the news imbalance and misinformation and increase media literacy in grassroot communities that need it the most,” says Soma. “The most effective way to fight misinformation is to break the habit of uncritical sharing. The FactShala training not only helped citizens realize that, but also enabled them to share this knowledge with their peers.”
FactShala is a news and information literacy program launched in 2020 by Internews with the support of Google.org and the Google News Initiative, in collaboration with DataLEADS.