Deepak Adhikari is the editor of Nepal Check, a leading fact-checking website in Nepal. Previously, he served as the editor of South Asia Check, Nepal’s first fact-checking platform.
In this interview, Deepak shares his insight on Tiktok’s critical role in the Nepalese misinformation ecosystem, the growing trend of shallowfakes in Nepal, and the manipulation of history by the Hindu nationalist Rastriya Prajatantra Party.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Deeksha Udupa: Who do you consider to be the largest beneficiaries of rising misinformation in Nepal? Who is most harmed by rising misinformation in Nepal?
Deepak Adhikari: In Nepal, it is predominantly the political actors, business groups, and geopolitical actors. The geopolitical actors are India, China, and recently the US because of its growing interest in Nepal in relation to its rivalry with China. The two areas where you see a lot of misinformation are political and geopolitical. Misinformation and disinformation are also hyper-prevalent during news events like elections.
Marginalized people and ordinary people are most impacted because people with power have the means to spread misinformation and disinformation through their own social media accounts. As a result, the public is left with no choice but to believe in what people with power — the media and influencers — are claiming. Nepal is a really diverse country with over a hundred languages and an equal number of ethnicities, so language disparity is important to note. Also, (high) quality information is expensive. If you can’t pay for news, you are left with information that is inaccurate, shallow, and superficial.
DU: How would you describe the efficacy of the Press Council Nepal in ensuring freedom of the press and regulating the spread of misinformation?
DA: We are now in a time when print media is dying, and everyone is moving to the digital space. The Press Council is an institution that needs to be reformed. The first thing to consider is that the head of the council is a political appointee, which means they would always follow the government’s position because they are appointed by the government. Even though the person would be from a journalism background, they generally would be close to a political party. There are three main parties in Nepal: Nepali Congress, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist), and the Maoist party. The Maoists are former rebels; they waged a 10-year insurgency from 1996 to 2006 and then entered into a peace deal. These three major political parties have been taking turns ruling Nepal for the last 30 years. Now, the UML and the Nepali Congress are running the government. So, the head of the Press Council then would be someone close to one of these political parties. Thus, we cannot expect an independent regulator. In Nepal, we really need an independent institution which can also monitor the digital space. I don’t think the Press Council has the resources and expertise to monitor social media.
Recently, I saw that the Press Council had taken action against ten Youtube channels and Facebook pages, which they alleged had spread misinformation and disinformation. But on what basis? The Press Council just takes action against anyone who they think is against the government or in favor of someone who is opposing the government. In this case, a medical entrepreneur was charged with spreading false information. The case is very flimsy because the police do not have the kind of robust evidence required to claim that this entrepreneur is spreading false information on YouTube, where YouTube influencers cover his press conferences and conduct interviews with him. They don’t have solid evidence, yet they are able to charge him because they have the power. The Press Council is just one of many institutions that I feel are not independent. It’s the political parties who control these institutions and some media houses as well.
DU: During the Panchayat era, ‘mission journalism’ — which was critical of the direct rule of the king — spread throughout Nepal. How would you describe the traditional media ecosystem in present-day Nepal?
DA: For 30 years during the Panchayat regime, the media was dedicated to exposing the ruling class and trying to give voice to the opposition. They fought for democracy and freedom of the press; after the end of the Panchayat regime and the restoration of democracy in the mid-nineties, the private sector entered journalism. Media houses opened up and independent and critical reporting was published. Yet now, after nearly thirty years, we are in a situation similar to other parts of the world. The media is struggling to survive, whether legacy media — radio, TV, print — or digital platforms.
Today, the media is under pressure to produce more with a limited number of human resources: the truth is, there are fewer reporters in the newsroom. On average, a big digital news outlet is expected to publish 50-80 news pieces a day. Yet, on a day when news is slow, how do you fill up that space? This is when outlets tend to rely on wire services like BBC, CNN, or AFP for news. They pick interesting news from these agencies, translate, and publish their coverage. That is where I see a lot of science misinformation happening: they’re in a rush and may not have a proper understanding of what’s being said about a new finding or discovery, but they’re required to publish a certain number of stories a day. This is when people are served with rather low-quality stories and information.
DU: What are your recommendations for fact-checking organizations in Nepal and globally in order to increase media literacy among civilians?
DA: A lot of these terms are thrown around like a panacea, but I don’t think that we have found a solution yet. People talk about a couple things that we need: more fact-checking, more research on how mis- and disinformation spreads, a greater understanding of key actors, and greater media literacy amongst young people. The last thing that is usually mentioned is that we need to hold social media companies accountable. These are the major areas that are focused on when discussing the information disorder.
However, I want to really stress that we should be focusing on producing more high-quality journalism. The thing with fact-checking is that we can only say that a statement is true, false, or misleading. Yet the kinds of narratives we see — the kinds of disinformation campaigns that are spread and run by powerful actors — it is not enough to say that this is true, false, or misleading. Labeling something as true or false is never enough. We have to dive deeper and produce more in-depth reporting on stories that the mainstream media has ignored. Journalism has always been top-down and this approach often ignores the issues that really need to be covered.
In terms of fact-checking, you have to constantly reinvent the process because this is a new thing. It’s only been two decades or so that fact-checking has become a noteworthy component of the verification and news business. As a fact-checker, one must consider if they are providing oxygen for amplification instead of trying to debunk something. There is always the potential to amplify the falsehood by fact-checking it. Lastly, there is a tendency for fact-checkers to take the easy route. A lot of issues are complicated and political, but fact-checkers — to avoid drawing the attention of governments and authorities — sometimes will fact-check things that are innocuous or less controversial. But fact-checking is an adversarial form of journalism. You have to make a judgement, you have to take a position.
DU: You have highlighted that a great deal of misinformation in Nepal stems from history. How are purveyors of misinformation manipulating Nepalese history, and for what purpose?
DA: A lot of this comes back to Nepal’s founding, when our founding father (it’s mostly fathers) King Prithvi Narayan Shah actually conquered several smaller states and unified them into what is Nepal today. That hereditary rule went on for over 240 years, and there (still) is a political party that tries to capitalize on the people’s love for the Hindu monarch. Perception of history is important when considering how the king is remembered: as authoritarian or as benevolent. Also, when we’re thinking about history, it’s always a chronology of the rulers, but where is the people’s history? Where is the economic history? What is greater society’s history? Because there hasn’t been much knowledge production in these areas, someone with power and influence can post a video out of context — what I define as a shallowfake — on social media and misinform the public. This has become a really big problem: how do we understand our historical events?
For example, the 2001 Royal Massacre was the beginning of the end of the monarchy in Nepal, but we don’t know what really happened behind closed doors. There are a lot of conspiracy theories but we don’t know the truth. In a country where there are a lot of rumors going around, rumor acts as the currency in Nepal and in many other parts of the world. With rumors and conspiracy theories, influential actors can easily manipulate people’s love for the Shah monarch or for the past in general, and it is difficult to counter this argument because recorded history is not comprehensive.
Indigenous people’s history, women’s history, and non-dominant history is ignored while certain people’s history is glorified. A single person may be given a lot of credit for Nepal’s progress, and other people’s contributions are ignored in the process. We need to revisit and revise our history and really go deep into what happened, because so far, what we have is the history of the kings, queens, prime ministers, rulers, and mostly men. There’s no critical assessment of who did what and how things were at the time.
DU: You highlighted the growing trend of “shallowfakes” in Nepal, where old videos are resurfacing without context or in a new, false context. Why do you think “shallowfakes” are highly trending?
DA: When we talk about disinformation and deepfakes, people tend to think that you need highly sophisticated technology to create such content. In this day and age, however, anyone with a mobile phone and a bit of technical knowledge can create a video. A vast majority of people have the capacity to do that.
The focal point of social media is attention. People are not detail-oriented. Whatever comes on your screen, you tend to believe because a regular person doesn’t want to go deep and research what they’re consuming. Social media prioritizes scrolling, so an individual will generally believe what they say with little questioning as they are scrolling through their feed. I think that these disinformation actors are trying to capitalize on the power of video and people’s tendency to ignore the details. We also live in a world with an information overload. You have so much information that you cannot process. It makes you confused because everyone seems to be talking and not making much sense. I think information consumers are fatigued and overwhelmed.
DU: What about TikTok as a platform makes it so difficult to fact-check? How do you think TikTok can regulate its content better so that misinformation is not as prevalent?
DA: With TikTok, there is audio, video, and text that come together. These posts are also very short. We are trying our best to fact-check TikTok because it has become a platform where a lot of mis- and disinformation is spread. I don’t think TikTok has addressed misinformation in a competent way. They have done some patchwork, but I don’t even think there is a proper way to make complaints in their community guidelines.
With most of these social media platforms, automatic content moderation is another problem. Also, in a country like Nepal, where Nepali is the language, there is a lack of language experts. Firstly, I feel that the judgment should be from human beings, not from machines. Secondly, without language experts, the nuances of language are ignored. If a human being with knowledge of Nepali language is moderating social media platforms, it is only then that content moderation can be effective. In my own research, I’ve been tracking content around gender disinformation, and the platforms are allowing people to say whatever they like. What is quite obviously misogynistic content has been allowed to flourish on their platforms.
In order for TikTok to regulate its content better, it needs to invest more. Nepal had actually banned TikTok because it became such a vector of misinformation. Due to geopolitical intervention from China and TikTok itself, the ban was eventually lifted, but I think TikTok needs to partner with fact-checkers like NepalCheck.Org. They should allow researchers to access their data. Transparency is key. Researchers should be able to freely access data from social media platforms. These platforms make decisions that impact users, but we aren’t made aware of any of this. Platform accountability is necessary.
DU: In 2022, it was estimated that 41% of Nepal’s adult population was on Facebook. Considering that Facebook was the dominant platform for political awareness during the 2022 Nepalese elections, how would you describe Meta’s efforts to combat misinformation during elections?
DA: Facebook partnered with the Election Commission. It organized training sessions for Election Commission officials, journalists, and even partnered with various journalism organizations. Facebook also held an Election Integrity Summit in Kathmandu before the election. There was some buzz, but Facebook laid off many of those people from its trust and safety department. In Nepal, Facebook partnered with AFP, the French news agency, to counter election misinformation, but that wasn’t effective, partly because AFP’s main priority was election coverage. Facebook failed to partner with local fact-checkers in Nepal during the 2022 elections.
The entire thing felt quite cosmetic. It appeared that they wanted to be seen as doing something rather than actually doing something. It was half-hearted and wasn’t really effective. I had even heard that the Election Commission had reported problematic election-related content to Facebook, but Facebook did not take any action.
From my own experience, cross-platform spread is also important to consider. Viral misleading information spreads from one platform to another. Something on Twitter will end up on Facebook and TikTok and Instagram. So, even if you debunk something on one platform, it will still spread on the other. And, with new social media platforms such as BlueSky emerging, the problem only grows bigger.
DU: How would you describe the efforts of the Election Commission of Nepal (EC) office in addressing election misinformation?
DA: The Election Commission organized programs and tried to raise awareness about disinformation and how this would impact elections. But in order to prioritize and protect election integrity, the Election Commission needs to work closely with these platforms. If there is problematic content, the Commission should be able to send it to these platforms and there should be a guarantee that these platforms will take action. I don’t think this has happened. Although there was talk about trying to address mis- and disinformation around the election, I don’t think that there was effective moderation and even removal of content.
I feel that there is also a lack of understanding on how these platforms work in the Commission. They appear to be happy that they were partnering with Meta rather than trying to address the actual problem, which is what is happening on Facebook. The issue is what is happening on these platforms and whether these platforms are delivering on their promises.
DU: It was reported that during the 2022 elections, there was a trend of misrepresenting popular media by misusing mastheads to spread false information. Why do you think the media was such a target for misinformation?
DA: Media, despite all of its shortcomings and decline, is one of the few institutions in Nepal that has some degree of credibility. Some media outlets are credible, so these misinformation spreaders try to capitalize on these brands and their credibility. In order to effectively spread false information, they need to anchor that to a credible organization. If they don’t, people will not believe it.
DU: Hindu nationalism is a significant export from India and has made its presence felt in Nepal through the right-wing Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP). What role does RPP play in the broader issue of misinformation in the country?
DA: The RPP supports the Hindu monarchy, the Shah monarchy, which ruled Nepal for over 240 years. Nepal, however, turned into a republic in 2008. For the vast majority of Nepalis, as validated through general elections, we are done with the Shah monarchy. I don’t see any hope in reviving the monarchy. RPP’s politics are right-wing and revisionist. They want to go back to an imaginary golden period — by cherry-picking information where there is a lack of credible research on Nepalese history, some of the RPP leaders are trying to create an image of a benevolent monarch where there was none. They’re trying to generate nostalgia for the past and cash in on the chaos and corruption that is going on right now. Current politicians are corrupt, but to contrast that with the Panchayat regime — a period where many of today’s problems can be traced back to — and glorify the Shah kings is propaganda.
Currently, there is political instability. There is a lot of corruption. The government is weak. It hasn’t delivered on its promises, leading to frustration and outmigration. But to compare current times with the autocratic monarchical system and claim that everything was fine then is highly problematic, especially when young people, who did not experience the monarchical rule, are the consumers of this information. When a video where a handsome king and queen striding along a red carpet and being welcomed by leaders across the world is juxtaposed with current leaders who people are fed up with goes viral, a lot of harm is done. A false notion that everything was better under the Hindu kingdom is popularized. And a lot of this revisionist history is spread on social media.