March 10, 2020

Fake news problem brings up need for new legislation to protect agriculture 

The era of fake news has not spared the agriculture industry from getting affected, and this is best illustrated in India, whose poultry industry has taken a backlash as a result of unfounded rumours spreading, which claims that the novel coronavirus can be transmitted through the consumption of chicken.

Prices of chicken in the South Asian country nosedived due to the misinformation which, according to an Al Jazeera report, are flooding Indians' phones.

On Saturday, March 7, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was forced to appeal to citizens and ask them to not believe rumours surrounding the coronavirus disease, or COVID-19.

"Amid the spread of coronavirus, there is an increasing propensity among people to create more panic. Fake records and fake news is being generated. Consequently, the countries are realising that unless they do not take strong penal action against the perpetrators of this fake news, such factitious pieces of news are going to spread like wildfire", warned Pavan Duggal, an Indian advocate who specialises in cyber laws, as quoted in a Business Standard report.

Duggal said that problems brought about by disinformation have been more challenging in India than in the West. India, he explained, does not have a dedicated law for fake news, unlike Singapore. "You could try to book them (the misinformation) under some provisions under the Indian Penal Code, but they are not very effective", he added.

Duggal urged India to come up with a new law on fake news. He said, though, that any fake news law must "pass the parameters of the principles enshrined under the Constitution of the country".

"In India, we have a bigger problem facing us, which is that we do not have the law in the first place", he said.

Paul Penner, past president of the US National Association of Wheat Growers, has said that agriculture "will require increasingly smarter technology that can not only protect our data and networks, but also protect us from criminal uses of bots as they try to destroy critical, credible information—not to mention, accurate news — which is crucial in any free society if it is to survive and prosper".

He added, "This may also require new legislation that sets thresholds of unacceptability regarding use of such technology. And this is where we are seriously lacking".