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How [& If] Young Voters Express Political Opinions on Social Media

June 08, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes

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We asked 18-26 year-olds, most of them first time voters, about how they consume and share information on social media. Read on to find out what they feel about sharing personal opinions: religious or political.

News Outlets Misreport Op-ed On Engineer Rashid As Omar Abdullah Quote

The Headline: ​​Engineer Rashid's victory will empower secessionists in J-K": Omar Abdullah

The [Mis]Reporting: Media outlets including news wire agency ANI misreported an opinion piece published in The Print as a quote by Jammu and Kashmir National Conference (JKNC) Vice President and party candidate from Baramulla constituency Omar Abdullah.

The media reports claimed that the former J&K chief minister said that Rashid Sheikh winning the Lok Sabha elections from the region, is a sign that "Kashmiri secessionism is far from spent."

Context: Abdullah lost by a margin of nearly 2 lakh votes to independent candidate Sheikh Abdul Rashid, popularly known as Engineer Rashid. He is currently jailed in an alleged terror funding case.

TL;DR: Basically, an opinion piece carrying a clear disclaimer that all the views expressed in the article are the author’s own was used to misattribute it to Omar Abdullah.

Getting it right >>> getting it first.

BOOM’s video series Facts Neeti sought to capture what leaders across the political spectrum thought about fake news, especially in light of the 2024 general elections. Here’s what they had to say!

AI Overtakes Real Images of War: What do Palestinian Journalists Say?

🔖 Viral on Instagram: If you're on social media, you'll likely have seen the “All Eyes on Rafah” image all across your feed. "All eyes on Rafah", the text on the image reads, atop a field of refugee tents neatly stretching into the distance, nestled between a hill range and cloudy skies.

All that is viral is not real: This "All eyes on Rafah" image that has been shared more than 47 million times on Instagram, is AI-generated. It surfaced after an Israeli strike on a tent encampment for displaced people in Rafah, killing 45 people and eliciting worldwide outrage.

The Argument: Critics have argued that AI-generated images aestheticise and normalise scenes of horrific violence against Palestinians. But how do Palestentian journalists who have been documenting the war feel about the AI image?

Read Titha Ghosh’s story.

Why Many Young Voters Believe In Self Censorship On The Internet

🔖 Decode’s Hera Rizwan & Titha Ghosh conducted a survey among 18-26 year-olds, most of them first time voters, to understand how they consume and share information on social media.

  • Around 78% of respondents believed that sharing religious or political opinions on social media could affect their relationships with friends, family, or colleagues.

  • Over 50% of the respondents have received backlash for posting their personal opinion.

  • Around 58% accepted to have consciously refrained from posting political content, fearing the ramifications of the same.

  • WhatsApp is the most used social media platform amongst the youngsters, closely followed by Instagram.

2024 Elections Report: Fake Polls, Cheap Voice Clones, Communal Claims Go Viral

🔖 Elections kept fact-checkers on their toes:  India conducted the world's largest democratic exercise in seven phases between 19 April and 1 June 2024. Over the last three months ( 1 March- 31 May), BOOM analysed 258 election-related fact-checks in English, Hindi and Bangla.

The analysis: 43% of total fact-checks (111 fact-checks) involved old and unrelated election-related videos and images being falsely presented as recent. Additionally, 10 fact-checks addressed claims of rigging electronic voting machines (EVMs), 12 involved AI-generated fabricated information, and 10 contained communal content.

Read Nidhi Jacob’s detailed analysis to know who the top target of election misinformation are.

Meta Harnesses User Data For AI Training; Complicates Opt-Out Process

🔖 Several users of Meta products received notifications stating that, starting from 26 June, the company will enhance its "AI at Meta experiences", incorporating Meta AI and AI creative tools.

Meta's policy states that information from posts and photos, including captions, will be used to train AI models, even if accounts are private.

Users of these platforms are automatically enrolled to provide consent for this data usage. Although they retain the choice to opt out, the process involves multiple steps, raising potential concerns regarding data privacy. Hera Rizwan explains how to opt-out.

🚫 Fake News You Almost Fell For

🔍 A video purporting to show a Muslim man criticising the Hindus of Ayodhya for not electing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power in their constituency of Faizabad went viral online. Find out the truth in 🔗 Hazel Gandhi’s ↗️ fact-check.

🔍 A video showing Telugu Desam Party (TDP) supporters setting fire to a photo of N Chandrababu Naidu, the party leader, went viral online with the false claim that it shows the people of Andhra Pradesh protesting against Naidu for forming a government with the BJP following the Lok Sabha elections. 🔗 Hazel Gandhi ↗️ debunked the claim.

🔍 An old video of BJP leader Navneet Rana crying and being consoled by her husband, was circulated with a misleading claim that Rana was caught on camera weeping after losing to her Congress opponent, Balwant Wankhede, in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections. Read 🔗 Srijit Das’ ↗️ fact-check.

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📖 This week's recommendation is: How to Get Started: Investigating Payment Gateways Online

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Verified By Boom is written by Divya Chandra, edited by Adrija Bose

and designed by H Shiva Roy Chowdhury.

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