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While Twitter is getting serious about purging fake accounts, and YouTube says it will try to fight conspiracy theories and fake news inflaming its platform with $ 25 million to fund a journalism of in good faith, WhatsApp is struggling with its own fake demons. in India, where social media platforms have been used to sow and spread false rumors – fueling popular violence and leading to deaths in recent years.
This week Facebook released the full page WhatsApp advertisements in Indian Newspapers to try to stem the tide of digital counterfeits threatening social media life in the region, with such tragic results.
This is not the first time about fake news in India, although it seems that this is the first time that he has reacted to the violence caused by the false propagated on WhatsApp specifically.
The anti-fakes announcement of the full WhatsApp page also informs users that "as early as this week" the platform is deploying a new feature that will allow users to determine if a message has been transmitted. "Double check the facts when you're not sure who wrote the original message," he warns.
This follows tests of WhatsApp in January when the platform tested notifications for when a message has been sent multiple times.
Obviously, WhatsApp has decided to advance this feature, at least in India, although the effectiveness of a control over technology-accelerated counterfeits that are probably also fueled by local prejudices remains to be seen. to be
Trying to teach nuanced critical thinking when there is a more basic lack of education that contributes to fomenting mistrust and credulity, and spreading the spread of fake and malicious rumors targeting certain people or segments of the population. the first place, risk both to be ineffective and to appear as a simple game of irresponsibility on the edges of a serious problem that has already caused several casualties.
used to not have responded quickly enough to similar risks in Myanmar – where the UN recently warned that its platform was armed to spread hate speech and used as a tool to fuel ethnic violence .
Reuters reports that the first batch of WhatsApp ads are broadcast in "key Indian newspapers," and the images posted on Twitter show a full-page ad in English – so you have to ask who these first advertisements are actually intended to influence.
But the agency reports that Facebook also plans to publish similar advertisements in regional dailies across India during this week.
We contacted WhatsApp with questions and we will update this story in response.
in India on how to spot false news and rumors, "a WhatsApp spokesman told Reuters in a statement. "Our first step is to place advertisements in newspapers in English and Hindi and several other languages, and we will build on those efforts."
The False Educational Announcement of WhatsApp warns users of "false information", offering ten tips for spotting fakes – many of which boil down to "checking other sources" to try to verify if what has been sent to you is true.
Another board urges WhatsApp users to "question the information that bother you" and, if they read something that makes them "angry or scared", to "think twice before sharing" [19659017] "If you are not sure of the source or concerned that the information may be false, think twice before sharing," reads another trick
] – warning: "Just because a message is shared many times, does not make it true."
In recent times, Facebook has also published full-page ads in newspapers for s & # 39; apologize for not backing up user data in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica Scandal, and coming out of the upcoming print advertisements of the European elections to warn of attempts to spread false news in an attempt to meddle in democratic processes.
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