Social messaging network WhatsApp has introduced a new feature called 'Checkpoint Tipline' in India to combat the spread of fake news on its platform.
The Facebook owned social network has taken the step ahead of India's election to help in tackling the spread of misinformation in the country.
WhatsApp is the number one social platform in India and has been the medium in which some individuals use to spread fake news to create tension and panic among the people. Religion and politics are the two focus in most fake news spread ...... which has resulted in violence and death of many in the past.
On WhatsApp, people easily forward messages that they receive without verifying its authenticity. To curb this, the Checkpoint Tipline feature will allow users to report any suspicious message that they receive.
This initiative was launched by PROTO, a media skilling startup based in India and technically assisted by WhatsApp.
"The goal of this project is to study the misinformation phenomenon at scale - natively in WhatsApp," PROTO's founders Ritvvjj Parrikh and Nasir ul Hadi said. "As more data flows in, we will be able to identify the most susceptible or affected issues, locations, languages, regions, and more. The verification reports we send back will encourage our grassroots-level 'listening posts' to send more signals for analysis."
Checkpoint Tipline will simply work in this way:
When a WhatsApp user comes across any information which they deem to be misleading, the user(s) will forward the news or whatever it is to Checkpoint Tipline on WhatsApp via +91-9643000888.
Once the messages reaches tipline, PROTO's verification centre will seek to respond and inform the user if the claim made in the shared message is verified or not.
In the response, the information will be classified as True, False, Misleading, Disputed or Out of Scope and will include any other related information that is available.
The Checkpoint Tipline will cover four regional languages which includes Hindi, Telugu, Bengali and Malayalam. English is also inclusive.