Government sensitising officers on new age media to fight misinformation with quick, sharp response

NEW DELHI: To help bureaucrats issue quick and sharp responses to fight misinformation, the govt is sensitising its secretaries, joint secretaries, additional secretaries and directors on the use of new age media, including social media and podcasts, to put out facts coupled with information and status of schemes and programmes.

TOI has learnt that a day-long conference — “outreach and communication for Viksit Bharat” — was held for all secretary-level officers last week. Top bureaucrats, including the principal secretaries to the PM — P K Mishra and Shaktikanta Das — and cabinet secretary T V Somantahan, gave detailed presentations. Later this week, a similar programme will be held for additional and joint secretaries, while directors will be sensitised at a conference next week.

Sources said the secretary-level officers were briefed about effective communication strategies —translating policies into people-friendly narratives, anticipating and preventing communication gaps that fuel misinformation, extensive use of Instagram, YouTube and vernacular platforms for wider reach, and harnessing the power of artificial intelligence to expand scale and speed of communication. The secretaries were also asked to work on building a 360-degree ecosystem for citizen feedback and incorporating citizens’ insights into mid-course policy corrections, they said.

“There is serious thinking on roping in influencers and artistes as they could have more impact than traditional govt communication,” said an official, adding that plans are afoot to set up fact-checking and rapid response units within ministries.

The officials were also informed how over 900 million people in India are active online at any time — more than 600 million are on social media, and on an average people are using some form of digital media for two and half hours.

“So, there is a need for proactive pre-bunking of misinformation rather than being reactive. Anticipating issues, pre-approved contents should be kept ready, and for immediate response, there should be quick sign-off rather than going for a long process as delay in response makes little difference,” said an official.

Officials TOI talked to across ministries said the secretaries have started briefing their colleagues in to take necessary steps.

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