Save us! Save us from fake news! This internet is bane! I remember as a school kid, I use to write essays and participate in debates around the topic 'Internet is Boon or Bane'. In '90s yes it was a hot topic for discussion. I use to be the one who use to say bane and win prizes because luckily no one else dared to pick against.

Years later the internet, that I was against with became my career choice. I forgot all my arguments which I use to say against the internet. But since last few years, I am seeing all those horrors discussed in those debates and essays coming true! There is no censorship of information on the news which goes online! Suddenly I realized the small trophy I won as a school kid was a result of this argument.

With internet news is spreading fast, lies and fake news is spreading faster! Making the news less informative, more ill-informative and in turn making the end user ill-informed. It is making us unlearn the wisdom we had. These unverified news articles are making our blood-boil for no reason!

Earlier the life was blissful with a two-month summer vacation, plucking the mangoes rather than now plucking the rotten-fake news every second which keeps popping up on the timeline. Yeah, that's the job I have opted for - to give the information, CORRECT information on any news. And the job is becoming tougher! Check these three examples of fake news doing rounds and people are believing them to be true and sharing them without any verification.

Government Websites Were NOT Hacked –

All the TV channels and news-wires flashed the news that Ministry of Defence Website got hacked by Chinese hackers and later there were reports of several other government websites hacked and down. Surprisingly, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman too claimed in her tweet that site is hacked – her tweet states – “Action is initiated after the hacking of MoD website ( http://mod.nic.in  ). The website shall be restored shortly…” Here is the mentioned tweet –

But hours later, the government denied the hack with a statement that all the 10 government websites were temporarily down due to "technical glitches" as there was a "hardware failure" in the content management system or CMS called Drupal - of these government portals. This was conveyed by Gulshan Rai, chief of cybersecurity in the PMO.

Proving the Chinese hacker theory of media and Honorable Minister as Hoax!

Priya Prakash Varrior is NOT wearing that Yellow CSK jersey –

Whatever this wink queen does become a headline, and whatever she does not that too becomes the headline. Yes, this just happened yesterday, before the first match of IPL 2018 between Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Mumbai Indians (MI) there were images of Priya Prakash Varrior in Yellow CSK jersey went viral, claiming that the young actress is supporting the comeback of CSK in the current season of IPL. We researched and found out that it was just a clean but shoddy job of Photoshop.

Respected I&B Minister Smriti Irani & Union MoS Jitendra Singh Please Note TN Seshan is NOT Dead -

The fake news of former Chief Election Commissioner TN Seshan’s demise is doing rounds since a week, we tried to alert our readers too that ex-CEC Mr. Seshan is NOT dead and the whatsapp forwards are fake. But as mentioned earlier, fake news travels faster than the truth, same happened in this case and it travelled little further till Information & Broadcast Ministry!  Being the Information & Broadcasting Minister as her duty she re-tweeted the message with her condolences, which was later deleted by both I&B Minister and Union MoS Jitendra Singh.

But the above condolence shocked me further and the forgotten thought which was ‘Resting In Peace’ somewhere inside my heart came alive! Yes the internet is bane!

(The opinions expressed in the above article are of the author and do not reflect the stand or position of LatestLY.)

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 08, 2018 02:28 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).