We live in the age of half-truths

A few days ago, this headline appeared on Times of India’s website —

Mumbai: Orphan with AIR 270 clicks wrong link, loses IIT seat.

You would have seen similar headlines posted all over social media as well. The public opinion was unanimously sympathetic about the kid as well as enraged about IIT Bombay, that they would deny the kid a seat just for ‘accidentally’ clicking the wrong button.

I came across this story as well but didn’t think much about it. Partly because these days, I have grown to be skeptical about viral news stories. People don’t wait to get the full story and create an opinion just based on the first set of facts that they see. And more often than not, a few days later we find out that it was all misinformation.

And surely, the same thing happened for this story as well. The director of IIT Bombay put out a clarification regarding this, explaining the process of counseling and seat allotment, and the steps one has to go through in order to “lose” their seat.

While the papers will have you believe that it was just a misclick that caused the kid to lose the seat, it is actually much more complicated than that. It is a 6 step process, that requires the user to re-enter their password as well as enter an OTP that is sent on their phones. And several times during this process the user is shown messages warning them that if they proceed, their seat will be gone permanently.

Now I am not saying that kid is wrong, or that the first reports were completely false. But don’t you think that we weren’t given the full story to start with? Shouldn’t we hear what both sides have to say before coming to a conclusion?

I would have added that the media should be more responsible when presenting the news, and not just go for clickbaity titles. But I won’t do so, because I have no faith left in them. It’s up to us to take the extra effort to stay informed.