Webinar on misinformation and fake news held at Sapatgram College

A CORRESPONDENT

DHUBRI: The Central Library of Sapatgram College, in association with the Department of Computer Science, organized an important online talk on 'Misinformation, Fake News and Society: An Approach to Fair use in ICT Environment' recently.

Inaugurating the webinar, Principal of Sapatgram College, Dr. RP Singh stated that misinformation was increasing and becoming harder to combat because fake news was a malaise and had been further worsened by the infodemic of the social media age, but fact checking too was evolving.

Earlier, while explaining the objectives of the webinar, Assistant Professor in Computer Science, Sapatgram College, Jaynal Abdin said that there had been increasing concern with the growing infusion of misinformation or fake news into public discourse and politics in the country and across the globe.

"Since we are dwelling upon in an era of Information Communication Technology, we often get baffled and confused as and when we see the scale and complexity of our polluted information which is used as weapon against us," Prof. Abedin added.

Head of Department, Library and Information Science, Gauhati University, Prof. Sanjay Kumar Singh participated in this webinar as keynote speaker. Speaking on the occasion Prof. Singh opined that society was passing through a state of considerable flux because of the quantum of misinformation and hoaxes that were popularly referred to as fake news.

"These are accelerating and affecting the way individuals interpret daily developments and it is important that government and academia should work in tandem to solve the problems," Prof Singh further said.

Answering to a query, IQAC Coordinator, Sapatgram College, Dr. G. K. Saha said that checking for news online –whether through Google, Twitter, Facebook, major newspapers, or local media websites –had become ubiquitous, and smartphone alerts and mobile applications bring the latest developments to people instantly around the world.

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