The fake news industry and its promoters

Needed: strong libel and defamation laws

Fake news spreads in the West mainly through social media over which courts and governments have little control. Its occurrence in mainstream media is rare on account of the heavy damages a tortfeasor has to pay if the victim takes recourse to litigation.   In Pakistan a fake news industry has developed in the mainstream electronic media because the law of tort remains undeveloped in the country. The multiplication of media channels and the race for ratings has led the channels to promote sensationalism. The journalistic discipline that requires a reporter or a commentator to verify any hearsay or news before publicizing it has been relaxed, in some cases with an abandon. The major purveyors of fake news have been the darlings of the popular networks at one time or another.  What has further helped the spread of the trend is the tendency in some of the politicians to level unconfirmed but damaging charges against their opponents.

This has facilitated the task of the practitioners of fake news. All sorts of charges are leveled and the responsibility to prove innocence is transferred to the accused. After creating doubts about the findings in the much publicized Zainab rape-cum-murder case, through false claims like the accused person had several accounts in banks and had the support of a gang led by a PML-N minister and thus damaging the reputation of the government, Dr Shahid Masood claims it was not his duty to determine the authenticity of the charges leveled by him but that of the state institutions.

The smaller criminals spread fake news with pecuniary motives to blackmail individuals. The bigger ones do it to damage the system. That there is a strong anti-democracy lobby in the country; it suits it if someone is damaging the reputation of the political institutions and politicians.  What is more the fake news industry helps the lobby to target any elected government and gloat over its helplessness to defend itself.

It goes to the discredit of the successive governments that they failed to legislate effective slander and defamation laws. Till this is done the fake news industry will continue to flourish and weaken the system.