WhatsApp adds a tip-line for checking fakes in India ahead of elections
2 April 2019 7:30 AM GMT
Facebook -owned messaging platform WhatsApp has launched a fact-checking tipline for users in India ahead of elections in the country. The fact-checking service consists of a phone number (+91-9643-000-888) where users can send dubious messages if they think they might not be true or otherwise want them verified. The messaging giant is working with a [?]
- Facebook -owned messaging platform WhatsApp has launched a fact-checking tipline for users in India ahead of elections in the country.
- The Economic Times of India reports that the startup intends to use the submitted messages to build a database to help study misinformation during elections for a research project commissioned and supported by WhatsApp.
- According to local press reports, suspicious messages can be shared to the WhatsApp tipline in four regional languages, with the fact-checking service covering videos and pictures, as well as text.
- WhatsApp has faced major issues with fakes being spread on its end-to-end encrypted platform - a robust security technology that makes the presence of bogus and/or maliciously misleading content harder to spot and harder to manage since the platform itself does not have access to it.
- So the company looks to be hoping to develop a multi-stakeholder, multi-format information network off of its own platform to help get the message out about fakes spreading on WhatsApp.
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