WhatsApp to Start Radio Campaign on Fake News Awareness

WhatsApp has announced that it will be starting a radio campaign across 46 Hindi speaking stations of All India Radio (AIR) to educate people about how they can stop forwarding fake news. After the success of this campaign, the company expects to continue it in other regional languages of India.

The campaign mainly focuses on how users can identify if the information forwarded to them is legitimate and from a credible source. This is just one of the many steps that the company has taken to stop the spread of fake content on its platform. After reports about mob lynching came out in Assam, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tripura, and West Bengal, it was found that they had been triggered by some WhatsApp messages for which the company faced a lot of criticism.

Fake news has also been created around the recent Kerala floods. In a recent fake video, a military man was criticising Kerala's chief minister over the relief operations carried out. Another fake news was that star footballer Cristiano Ronaldo had donated $11 Mn to the Kerala flood disaster fund.

What Is WhatsApp Doing To Tackle The Fake News Problem In India?

In a recent visit to India, WhatsApp CEO Chris Daniels met the IT Minister and discussed how they could work on the issue of fake news. The IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad then requested WhatsApp to set up a grievance cell in India.

WhatsApp has launched the forwards label, to tell users if the message has been created by the sender or not. Other features released include, not allowing former members of a group to be re-added and giving group administrators the choice to decide who can send messages.

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