Information Disorder in Regional Digital Ecosystems: An Empirical Evaluation of Falsehood Propagation in Social Media in Tamil Nadu

Publication Details

Publication Date

10/10/2026

Volume / Issue

Vol 1, Issue 5 (2026)

Article No.

033

Journal

British Journal of Contemporary Research

DOI

https://doi.org/10.67693/BJCR-9KJALTCL

Received

15 Sep 2026

Views

54

Downloads

16

Abstract

This study is a time-bound forensic assessment of non-political digital misinformation that flowed across the digital ecosystem of Tamil Nadu. The analysis excludes electoral and partisan political narratives and examines ten major viral case studies along four operational pathways: Public Safety and Social Panic, Cyber-Financial Fraud, Educational Integrity, and Public Health and Civic Infrastructure. In this paper, we adopt an empirical mixed-methods framework to quantify audience reach on open broadcast platforms (YouTube, Instagram, X, Facebook) and to compute transmission velocity in dark social environments (WhatsApp, Telegram). Technical telemetry is collected alongside engagement metrics for each case study including distribution by platform, views/impressions, likes, dark social forwards, public shares/retweets and user comments. The empirical findings show that non-political misinformation takes advantage of affective cognitive triggers such as parental panic, financial precarity, and disaster anxiety, not synthetic media (deepfakes). The paper discusses real-world implications of out-of-context video footage, forged administrative PDF circulars, automated smishing APK trojans and deceptively vernacular voice notes that result in mob vigilantism, mobile banking fraud and disruption of public utility. Counter-measures discussed include telecom-level APK filtering, verified administrative push channels, and localized media literacy protocols [1, 2, 3].

License

This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License . Free to read, share, and adapt with attribution.