By Vipul Kumar In July 2023, Himachal Pradesh and parts of Uttarakhand were reeling under severe floods. Tanushree Pandey - a journalist from Delhi, was in the field to report from these two ecologically-sensitive North Indian states that are increasingly in the crosshairs of climate change. Tanushree was stranded on the outskirts of Delhi held up by an unregulated Kanwar Yatra on the highway. The Kanwar Yatra is an annual pilgrimage where, mostly young Hindu men who are devotees of the Hindu god Shiva, carry water from the river Ganges and other shrines. A few hours after being stuck, Tanushr...
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By Snigdhendu Bhattacharya Sandeshkhali, West Bengal — A remote, impoverished area in West Bengal in the Sundarban region along Bangladesh border has been on the boil since the second week of February. Hundreds of women hit the streets at Sandeshkhali, staging agitations demanding action against local leaders of the state’s ruling party, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress (TMC). They have alleged widespread economic exploitation and sexual harassment. Over the past three weeks, properties of several TMC leaders have come under attack and several parts of Sandeshkhali witnessed...
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By Umesh Kumar Ray Patna, BIHAR— “Do you want to work in Pregnancy Job Service?” The person at the other end of the call asked this reporter. The phone number was listed on a Facebook page called All India Pregnant Job Service. For the next two to three minutes, the operator informed this reporter in detail about the job and the huge earnings he could potentially receive. The job required registration to be done, for which a copy of their Aadhar card, a photo and 500 rupees had to be sent. Elaborating on what was on offer, the operator said 5 lakh rupees will be given in advance as soon as the...
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By Snigdhendu Bhattacharya On March 4, 2020, Somanth Singh, a resident of Fatakgora area in Chandannagar town, about 40 km north of Kolkata, found some uninvited guests at his door. A group of 10 odd activists of Bangla Pokkho, which describes itself as the ‘national organisation of Bengalis in India’ had reached Singh’s house to teach him a lesson. They were armed with printouts of screenshots of comments Singh had posted on social media. They asked Singh to clarify the comments he posted on Facebook days ago. As it appeared, Singh had sent a message to the Facebook page of one of Bangla Pokk...
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By Karen Rebelo Fake ads using artificial intelligence voice cloning technology are being promoted on Meta’s social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and messaging app Messenger to its users in India. Decode found numerous such fake ads peddling everything from get-rich quick schemes, betting apps, trading platforms to diabetes drugs, in the Meta Ad Library - a publicly accessible database to study political ads that was created in the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. We found 150 such URLs, however, restrictions around the visibility of these ads and repetition of ident...
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By Asad Ashraf In 1999, the Kargil War between India and Pakistan left indelible scars on the collective memory of both nations. Twenty-four years later, an unlikely platform emerged to bring together battle-hardened military veterans from both sides. This heartwarming story unfolds within the virtual confines of "Langar Gup," a Facebook group founded by Major Zuha Saeed in 2020. The group's mission: to challenge stereotypes and hostilities that have long plagued relations between the armed forces of these neighboring countries. For the uninitiated, Langar Gup refers to the unofficial traditio...
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By Adrija Bose How easy is it to buy guns in India? If we go by what we see on social media, it seems fairly easy. On 6 August, Bhagirath Pareek posted a phone number to call for guns, on a Facebook group called ‘Gangstar’. The group is full of posts that showcase guns and have numbers listed for buyers. When the reporter contacted the given number, the man who picked up the call identified himself as Mohit Kashyap. He said he was from Ujjain but could deliver the weapon to Delhi within a day through his contacts in Delhi and the surrounding areas. He then sent multiple photos of different typ...
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By Saurabh Vishwkarma Editor's Note: For our Decode Voices section, we will be documenting personal experiences with the Internet and online platforms. Technology, privacy, law and policy will be touched upon through these stories. In this story, Saurabh Vishwkarma tells Kaisar Andrabi how he got scammed by a fake Facebook profile selling online cloth brands. On June 27, I was scrolling through my Facebook timeline, checking out different posts and content. As a part of the generation that had a special connection with Facebook, it has always been my go-to platform in social spaces. But, littl...
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By The Conversation Yunkang Yang, Texas A&M University; Matthew Hindman, George Washington University, and Trevor Davis, Columbia UniversityHow much misinformation is on Facebook? Several studies have found that the amount of misinformation on Facebook is low or that the problem has declined over time. This previous work, though, missed most of the story. We are a communications researcher, a media and public affairs researcher and a founder of a digital intelligence company. We conducted a study that shows that massive amounts of misinformation have been overlooked by other studies. The bigge...
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By Vipul Kumar Santosh Singh Bhadoria, popularly known as Karauli Sarkar Baba, claims to have cure for everything— from cancer to short height to the ‘disease of homosexuality’. The self-styled godman runs an Ashram in a village in Kanpur, in Uttar Pradesh. He is also sort of a social media influencer with a number of Facebook, YouTube and Instagram pages dedicated to him. Each of his videos get lakhs of views. In these videos, he claims to raise someone’s height in less than 30 seconds, promises a cure for advance cancer, and exorcises the spirit of Bruce Lee. A website called karaulisarkar.c...
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