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1. People below the age of 20 and above the age of 50 are more likely to believe fake news. Those relatively new to the use of the internet still do not grasp the concept of fake information over these platforms, reveals a new survey "Countering Misinformation in India." This survey has been conducted jointly by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI).
2. At least 40% of the respondents believed in "misinformation" received over social media if it came with leading backgrounds and evidence, while 34% of them believe the information when it is shared by a trustworthy organization.
3. The dominant factor that drives people to forward such information is their belief that it might benefit others and help in their safety. In fact, that was the response of almost 50% of the respondents. This was compounded by the fact that at least 20% of the respondents expressed their lack of trust in conventional media, thus placing their faith in content shared by common people over social media.
4. But even then, newspapers still remain the top source of information for most. At least 53% of the respondents trust what is generally perceived as neutral media, and only 29% trust technology and social media platforms.
5. However, what was surprising was that almost 45% of the respondents did not even know about the existence of fact-checking organizations, and most did not even know that journalists had to verify data before they let it out. Only 26% of the respondents believe that it is the responsibility of the media to curb or identify fake news. Many respondents also put the responsibility of identifying such fake news on individuals.
6. The survey has found that first-time or early users of internet platforms are more susceptible to fake news than others. There is a need for building capacities and creating a National Civic Digital Literacy Strategic Plan.
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I spent 32 years in Information Technology out of which I was a Chief Executive Officer or MDorthe software head for 23 years for large global multinational software companies with thousands of software professionals worldwide and 6 offices in the US, 3 in Europe, 1 in Japan and 1 in Australia. I had to travel all over the globe around 150 times for business. During this period, I had also written 4 books with 500-700 pages each on Information Technology published by Tata McGraw-Hill and then translated into Chinese for global distribution.
I learnt a lot of things when I was running these large companies. The first one was the importance of team work. In today’s world, nothing is possible without team work. You cannot be successful if you are a loner and an egoistic person. Secondly, you need to lead from the front by setting a good example in front of your staff. Third was that you need to treat your subordinates and your colleagues as friends. In my career, I made a few mistakes, but learnt a lot about motivation, being a good listener, target setting and the art of delegation which forms such an important part of today’s management.
After working for all these software companies for so many years, I wanted to retire from my line of work and write on various subjects concerning human life and existence. Therefore, I gave up two offers of around 3 crore rupees per annum to become a writer. This is how my second innings as a writer in Marathi began.
After this, I have written about 34 books in Marathi. Most of them have become bestsellers with tens of thousands of copies sold for each. However it is not sales or the money that is important to me as much as the fact that these books have brought about very good changes in the lives of thousands of readers.
Change is the only constant and disruptive technologies are only quickening its pace. “I’ve been an entrepreneur all my life. Never has the pace of change been as high as it is today. Today, we are facing a large number of disruptive forces, especially those caused by technology,” Nilekani said. He shared the example of the iPhone, which is currently celebrating its 10th anniversary. “What we have seen in the past 10 years is a complete change in the balance of technology from serving the enterprise to serving the consumer. Today, when you look at the leading companies in the world by Market Capitalisation, they are all companies that service consumers like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Apple and so on. This is because the balance of power has shifted to consumer technology,” He said. The constant change will require constant learning and relearning. The core message from Nilekani therefore was: Lifetime learning. “The good news is that you have got degree from IIT Madras. The not so good news is that you can’t stop learning. You will have to keep learning for the rest of your life because we are now entering an era of lifelong learning,” he said. And by life-long learning, he didn’t mean “going to a campus and have fun for five years.” It will be learning in short bursts, any time learning, anywhere learning. It’s going to be just in time learning. A lot of it will even be online learning.
This need for constant learning and relearning will come because of our collective inability to predict the kind of jobs that will be done in future or the kind of organisations that people will be working for in future. The high rate of automation in the jobs will have an impact on the way jobs are done. We have seen in the past that technology has made repetitive jobs go away as computers became more and more powerful. In the past 10-15 years, you are seeing the rise of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Machine Learning. And increasingly, in the last 5-6 years, you are seeing the rise of deep learning, which allows you to use a new kind of technology called neural networks that can make computers smarter and smarter.