WhatsApp Ties Up With NASSCOM To Educate People On Fake Information Identification
To promote digital literacy training, WhatsApp has joined hands with NASSCOM to train nearly one lakh Indians to find and report false information on social media, reports IANS.
"We are excited to expand our partnerships with civil society to advance crucial digital literacy skills that can help combat misinformation shared on WhatsApp," said Abhijit Bose, Head of India, WhatsApp.
The training will also provide tips and tricks to stay safe on WhatsApp. The co-created curriculum will include real-world anecdote tools that can be used to verify forwarded messages and actions that users can take, for instance, reporting problematic content to fact checkers.
Other law enforcement agencies working in India will also disseminate essential takeaways from the training programme in multiple regional languages. “This training educates people throughout India to be alert and aware of the messages they receive and to verify the facts before forwarding," Bose added.
To widen the scope of the programme, NASSCOM Foundation will also spearhead the "each one teach three" campaign that will mandate every volunteer to share their learnings with three more people, leading to a network effect. The first training will be held on 27 March 2019, in Delhi.
Search Before You Share
To further crackdown down on fake news, Facebook-owned WhatsApp is also currently testing a reverse image search tool which will pop up in chats and allow people to check where the image came from before they consider sharing it.