Fact-Checking India: Identifying the Spread of Fake News and Policy Recommendations for Combatting Misinformation

This study explores the prevalence and nature of fake news on social media in India, examining how it manifests across different themes and understanding user behaviour and perceptions towards misinformation. The empirical research identifies six major themes: politics, health, crime, entertainment, general topics, and religion. Political fake news is the most frequent accounting for 46% of cases. This theme, along with general issues (33.6%) and religion (16.8%), represents 94% of the fake news stories analysed, underscoring the significant impact of misinformation, particularly in political contexts.