WhatsApp launches a tip line in India to battle fake news
2 April 2019 8:03 AM IST
WhatsApp has launched a tip line in India to which you can send forwards, rumors, and suspicious-sounding messages and have them verified.
- WhatsApp has launched its next weapon in the fight against misinformation on its platform in India: a tip line to which you can send forwards, rumors, and suspicious-sounding messages and have them verified.
- The tip line is live as of today; if you'd like to give it a try, beam messages over to +919643000888, and reply with '1' when prompted to confirm that you want the previous message you sent to be verified.
- Beyond zealous civilians who may share bogus messages, political parties operate numerous (read: thousands) of group conversations to spread their propaganda – so the Facebook-owned messaging platform needs to engage every tool it's got to curb the spread of fake news.
- It'd be good to see this built into WhatsApp somehow, either as a 'Verify this' option alongside the forward button in chats, or as a pop-up that encourages people to try sending rumors to the tip line before sending them along.
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