Kerala is battling the worst disaster in its long history. During this catastrophic flood, it wasn”t the heavy rain falls and overflowing rivers alone that Kerala had to battle away, but the continuous and vicious attack of fake news. There was a lot of fake information spreading through social media regarding Kerala”s efforts to tackle the disaster. When a few tried to stop people from giving donations to the relief fund others went to the extent of using an imposter to blame Kerala”s flood rescue operations.

One of the major fake news that went around said that Chief Ministers Distress Relief Fund is totally corrupted and no victim will be benefited from the fund. But in actuality CMDRF is totally transparent as every transaction is carried out through banks. More than that comes under the arbitration of Controller and auditor General’s audit and Government is bound to present the accounts in the Legislative assembly.

Even though there was no warning against dangerously excessive rainfall many blamed Kerala for neglecting ‘weather reports’. Social media was flooded with messages of Kerala’s denial of army assistance whereas the Kerala government asked for more help from Centre from the beginning of the rescue mission itself an never denied the army.

An audio clip spread all over the Whatsapp groups said that only the rich in Kerala is affected and there is no need for the calls for donations. The fake news about the collapse of Mullaperiyar dam and identification of cracks on many other dams panicked everyone in the State. There were many other fraud messages too.

The fake news were a major threat t the rescue operations and it posed hindrances in getting donations especially outside of Kerala. The impact of such fake news mounted to such an extent that the government had to announce legal actions against them.