WhatsApp in India says partnership with the government, the company needed to fight misinformation



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MUMBAI (Reuters) – Facebook Inc. ( FB.O ) WhatsApp Messaging Service responded to a call from India's Ministry of Technology to curb the spread of false information about its platform, claiming that such a task required a partnership between the pair as well as with society in general.

PHOTO FILE: The WhatsApp messaging app is seen on a phone screen on August 3, 2017. REUTERS / Thomas White / Photo File

India is the biggest WhatsApp market with more 200 million users. But false information on its application this year has contributed to the outbreak of massive blows from more than a dozen people, at least three of whom have died.

On Sunday, five other people were lynched in the western state of Maharashtra because they were suspected of being kidnappers.

The rise of these incidents prompted the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technologies on Tuesday to ask WhatsApp to take immediate action to prevent the spread of false information and provocative content.

The department also stated that WhatsApp "can not escape liability and liability" when such services are misused by users to spread such erroneous information.

"Like the Government of India, we are horrified by these terrible acts of violence and wanted to respond quickly to the very important issues you raised," said WhatsApp in a letter to the ministry dated July 3 and reviewed by Reuters. .

"We believe that false news, misinformation and the spreading of hoaxes are the issues best handled collectively: by the government, civil society and technology companies working together."

The courier says that it gives users safe and secure plans to conduct long-term advertising campaigns on public safety.

"As a starting point, we will soon publish new educational materials on misinformation and we will conduct our information education workshops," said WhatsApp.

The company recently added a feature to its application that prevents users from adding old mail group members, and allowed group administrators to decide who can send messages. It also tests the tagging of forwarded messages.

Report of Sankalp PhartiyalEdition of Christopher Cushing

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