Re: Shoot the messenger
Your argument is nonsense . People in the West or India or Timbuktu are just people - none more inherently "intelligent" or less susceptible to manipulation than the other.
Even in the "Educated" West, elections have been unduly influenced by fake news, false information and motivated campaigns of provoking outrage. People have lost their lives when extremists have resorted to violence by shooting sitting Congresswomen and Senators ! Despite Obama showing his birth certificate millions still believed he was a Muslim from Kenya !
Yet your "Solution" is to sufficiently educate villagers in India to determine the verisimilitude of "rumors" and "gossip" ? So for another "generation" we ought to sit back and allow these vigilante lynchings and mob violence to continue? Do you think these people who spread fake news and provocative stories will remain silent for an entire generation ?
There has to be some effort from service providers to be part of the solution - Govt compelling them to do something to limit if not eliminate the spread of viral messages is a good thing. The liberty to communicate instantly with tens of thousands of people should have some checks and balances. Failure of Facebook to participate in finding a solution would be tantamount to them being complicit in this phenomena of fake news and the violence it generates.