‘In India, misinformation linked to violence & deaths’: Watch Last Week Tonight on Misinformation

In the latest episode of Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver did a segment on the spread of misinformation among immigrant diaspora communities in the US. Oliver discussed how much of the misinformation being spread among these communities was through instant messaging apps like Whatsapp, WeChat, and so on.

Oliver also focused on how misinformation taps into culturally specific interests or fears when it comes to immigrant communities. Looking at specific cases among the Korean, Chinese and Latino diaspora communities, Oliver also focused on how misinformation spread among the Indian diaspora through Whatsapp. He cited a popular TikTok post which demonstrated how easy it was to create viral Whatsapp forwards that contained misinformation. Exhibit A: “Make sure that you mention that a Harvard scientist helped confirm an ancient wisdom...cause we love those headlines.”

He also mentioned that while the TikTok post was meant to be a joke, it had indeed been circulated as legitimate information.

Oliver discussed how Whatsapp has made an ad for the Indian market. The ad campaign encourages responsible spread of information on the app.