A new feature is coming to WhatsApp to block fake news and online scams. Find out how Checkpoint Tipline will work
For some time now, the company at the head of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp has been waging a fierce battle against fake news and online scams. Some measures have already been taken on social networks, but now it is also the turn of the messaging app. On WhatsApp comes a new anti-bufala feature.
For the moment, the feature will be introduced only in India, and it will be called "Checkpoint Tipline". It will serve purely to analyze and manage the circulation of fake news and the level of public misinformation during the upcoming Indian elections. In these situations, crucial for determining the political and social climate, online hoaxes increase and chase one after the other. And it happens not only through social networks, but also via private messages. And it is precisely during these events, capable of catalyzing social attention, that it is necessary to limit the circulation of fake news.
WhatsApp against fake news: here is the new function to report hoaxes and scams
CheckPoint Tipline will be the fast track to report all the scams, fake news and hoaxes circulating on WhatsApp. The initiative has been launched by PROTO, an Indian startup that collaborates with the popular messaging app. Thanks to the new feature, users will be able to report unclear news or from unreliable sources by sending a WhatsApp message to +91-9643000888. Whenever user will report a suspicious article or link, PROTO will verify it and offer the sender more information, revealing if it is a true news or a fake news. There will even be levels of trustworthiness for each piece of content under scrutiny: true, false, misleading, disputed by others or uncertain. PROTO will also attach to the answer all the available information for the examined content.
For now, the languages covered by the service are English, Telegu, Bengali, Hindi, Malayalam, i.e. all Indian regional idioms. The founders of PROTO, Ritvvij Parrikh and Nasr ul Hadi, are very pleased with the project. In an interview, they revealed that the goal is also to study the level of misinformation on WhatsApp. Fake news is a phenomenon known to all, but still little analyzed. Based on the requests that will arrive to the Checkpoint Tipline, it will be possible to understand which are the fake news able to move the strings of public opinion. Moreover, the areas where there is more misinformation will be analyzed, as well as the type of people most willing to believe and share it. In short, it's not only a service related to the reduction of the phenomenon, but an occasion to analyze it in depth
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