Coronavirus: The human cost of fake news in India

ake or misleading news can have a real impact on those who find themselves the targets. This has been a particular problem in India during the coronavirus pandemic, where reliable sources of news are frequently drowned out by unverified information online.
False information has had serious consequences for minority communities as well as some business sectors such as the meat industry.
The Reality Check team has looked at the extent of this misinformation and some of those directly affected.
Religious tensions exposed
India's religious fault lines are an important theme across false stories spreading online, something that has been further highlighted by the coronavirus outbreak.

We've looked back at claims debunked by five Indian fact-checking websites between January and June this year.

They fall under four broad headings:

Coronavirus outbreak
February's Delhi riots
Citizenship Amendment Act
Claims about the Muslim minority
Of the 1,447 fact-checks on five Indian websites, claims around coronavirus dominated, making up 58% of them.

This was largely related to false cures, lockdown rumours and conspiracy theories about the origins of the virus.

Poultry is one of the main forms of meat consumed in India.

"We were giving away chicken for free because we didn't know what to do with the stock," said Sujit Prabhavle, a meat trader in the western state of Maharashtra.
"Our sales fell by 80%," he said.
"I saw a message on WhatsApp that said eating chicken would spread coronavirus, so people stopped buying meat," said Touhid Baraskar, another meat seller from Maharashtra.
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Viruses are the dangers of the network as well as the computer.