Fake News round-up: Analysis of viral misinformation during Telangana, Karnataka 2023 elections

Hyderabad: The southern states of Telangana and Karnataka went to polls this year to elect their new State governments. The Congress party, which is struggling in North India against the popularity of prime minister Narendra Modi, emerged victorious in both states.

In this article, we analyse the flow of mis/disinformation that went viral online during the two State Legislative elections. The data was compiled and analysed by going through social media feeds during the elections. This includes Facebook posts, reels, tweets on the X (formerly Twitter) platform, WhatsApp forwards and more.

The fake news ranged from completely fabricated content, misleading content where a picture or an image is taken out of context to propaganda aimed to show one’s political opponents in a bad light through targeted fake content.

NewsMeter was at the forefront of debunking the misinformation spread online by lone wolves and IT cells of political parties with a deliberate attempt to dissuade voters with fake and misleading information.

Karnataka elections

In Karnataka, the fight was mainly between two parties, Congress and the BJP. More than Telangana, Karnataka experienced a higher volume of false claims during its elections. Our English team identified and flagged a total of 24 pieces of misinformation online specifically targeting Karnataka voters, before and after the elections.

Notably, 50 per cent of these deceptive posts targeted Congress. Going by the number of likes, shares and retweets of these posts, one can see how they gained momentum, particularly after the party secured victory. Concurrently, misinformation against the BJP during the election phase accounted for around 25 per cent.

Telangana elections

In Telangana, the electoral dynamics during the state elections involved a trilateral competition between the Congress party, the BJP and the previous ruling government of BRS. The prevalence of election misinformation and fake claims was comparatively lower by 42 per cent than what was seen in Karnataka.

Of the election-related misinformation in Telangana, 58 per cent was directed against Congress. However, mirroring the pattern in Karnataka, misinformation against Congress surged after the party clinched victory in the state. The results were declared on December 3. Out of the 58 per cent of fake posts targeting the party, 16.6 per cent emerged after the Congress triumphed in Telangana.

There was a noticeable upswing in misinformation after the results were announced, specifically targeting the Congress-led governments which assumed power in both states. Alarmingly, approximately 50 per cent of these posts carried a communal charge.

Fake pre-poll surveys and promises

Fake news can be of many types. During election season, the fake news was centred around fake pre-poll surveys and fake political manifestoes.

Here is one such example of a fake survey. In Karnataka, we found more fake surveys predicting the BJP’s victory. In 2018, BBC, the British public service broadcaster, clarified in a tweet that it does not conduct pre-election surveys in India.

However, a fake survey using the BBC logo went viral during the Karnataka elections, claiming that the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) would win more than 140 seats.

The fake surveys were no to limited to declaring BJP as the ‘winner’.

Twice, once in Karnataka and the other in Telangana, a fake NDTV Poll of Polls went viral on social media predicting the victory of the Congress. NDTV, in both instances, took to X to clarify that the channel someone faked their survey by using their template.

Fake surveys are methodically planted by the IT cells of the political parties on social media. IT cells are public relations departments which as the face of the parties share information about the parties in online public spaces. Some IT cells of parties deliberately spread misinformation on their political opponents.

During the election campaign period, fake promises from parties made rounds on social media, especially through WhatsApp forwards.

During the Telangana elections, news began to spread that the Congress party for the 2023 Telangana Assembly elections announced various schemes in its manifesto exclusively for the Muslim community. It comprises offering free electricity to mosques, pledging financial aid of Rs 20 lakhs to underprivileged Muslim students etc. However, it was fake news.

The claim comes from the 2018 manifesto when the Telangana Congress promised to provide free electricity to all religious places of worship, including Hindu temples, churches and mosques and financial assistance to poor Muslim students and economically backward students from other religious communities.

Post-poll misinformation

The cycle of misinformation is not limited to election campaigning but continues even after the election results are announced. Misleading claims or fake news formed propaganda made to attack the newly formed governments.

An example of this involves a screenshot of a fake tweet that went viral after Congress won in Karnataka. The fake tweet was shared claiming that Pakistan prime minister Shehbaz Sharif congratulated the people of Karnataka for electing the Congress party and hoped Congress, along with our SDPI, would work for the strengthening of Islam in India and the sovereignty of Karnataka.

Similarly, after the Congress victory in Telangana, a video of journalist Sudhir Chaudhary was shared with the false claim that after the Congress victory, the state Indian flag with Islamic Kalima written on it was used by people in a victory procession.

Telangana also witnessed fake news after the election was over, about pre-poll promises of the newly-elected Congress party.

A WhatsApp forward in Telugu made rounds with the false claim that the newly elected Telangana chief minister, A Revanth Reddy, has passed an order making it mandatory for the children of government employees to enrol in government schools.Another fake viral WhatsApp message claimed that one can get an LPG gas cylinder for Rs 500 by registering for the subsidy scheme at their gas agency. The newly formed Telangana Congress government has not announced any registration to avail of LPG cylinders at Rs 500.

Communal spin

In both states, there were attempts made to polarise the election on religious lines. Around 50 per cent of the post-poll misinformation targeting the Congress party was communal.

One such example includes a statement attributed to Revanth Reddy, now chief minister of Telangana, which went viral claiming that he would collect money for the upliftment of Muslims by auctioning lands belonging to Hindu temples.

However, Reddy had not made any such statement. The fake news was spread by sharing a screengrab under the Way2News graphics banner. However, the media outlet took to X to clarify that they did not report the news and that people were deliberately spreading fake news by using their logo.

Another example involves a disturbing video (viewer discretion advised) from Manipur in 2022 showing young men killing a cow on the BJP flag. People sharing the video claimed that the video is from Karnataka where people were celebrating Congress's victory in the state elections.

Misleading claims

Misleading claims are where context from a fact or an event is removed or altered to implicate unrelated parties.

One type of misleading claim involves sharing old videos as recent incidents.

An example of this type includes a 2018 video of Maganti Gopinath, a Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLA candidate from Jubilee Hills in Hyderabad being scolded by a woman while canvassing door-to-door for votes. However, it went viral in 2023 as ‘proof’ of an anti-BRS sentiment among women voters for the 2023 Telangana State Assembly elections.

Another type of misleading claim includes attributing true events, especially crimes, to people or groups who were never involved in the events.

One such example is a video from 2021 showing cash being distributed to voters in Huzurabad Assembly by-polls. This was falsely shared as money being given to voters by the BJP in Karnataka during the 2023 Assembly election.

Then, a video showing the Income Tax department seizing Rs 2.3 crores in cash from the spare tyre of a car travelling from Bengaluru to Shivamogga in 2019 during the general elections was falsely linked to the BJP and the 2023 Karnataka election.

Misleading claims also involve attributing events that happened in one part of the world to another. For example, a video showing people in several countries holding placards that read ‘No Vote for BJP’ from 2021 was falsely linked to the 2023 Karnataka elections.

Videos featuring politicians can also be the target of misleading claims. This happened to Congress leader and Karnataka deputy chief minister DK Shivakumar, whose video went viral during both Karnataka and Telangana elections.

A video showing DK Shivakumar walking unsteadily during the door-to-door campaign ahead of the Karnataka elections was widely shared on X and Facebook with the claim that it shows a drunk Shivakumar.

The video was also shared during the Telangana elections claiming that it showed him being under the influence of alcohol during the election campaigning in Tandur, Telangana. In reality, the video shows a tired Shivakumar during Mekedatu Padayatra in Karnataka in 2022.

Shivakumar had led the Karnataka election as a president of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) and was in Telangana as the AICC observer for the Telangana elections.

Misleading claims involving prime minister Narendra Modi also went viral during the election time. A video of Modi greeting people and drinking tea at a teashop went viral during the 2023 Karnataka Assembly elections, depicting him as the common man, who stopped at a normal teashop during the election campaign. In reality, the video is from 2022 in Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi ahead of the last phase of the state’s Assembly elections.