Fake news in elections: Now tip off WhatsApp about it using 'tipline'
WhatsApp on Tuesday launched a service in India where over 200 million users in the country can tip off fake news , misinformation and rumours related to elections. Launched by PROTO, a media skilling start-up, the tipline will help create a database of rumours to study misinformation during elections for Checkpoint -- a research project commissioned by WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned company said in a statement. Dig Deeper Media and Meedan, who have previously worked on misinformation-related projects around the world, are helping PROTO to develop the verification and research frameworks for India. "The goal of this project is to study the misinformation phenomenon at scale -- natively in WhatsApp," said PROTO's founders Ritvvij Parrikh and Nasr ul Hadi. When a WhatsApp user shares a suspicious message with the tipline, PROTO's verification centre will seek to respond and inform the user if the claim made in the message shared is verified or not. The resp