WhatsApp To Make An Effort In Stopping Fake News

To overcome the issue of fake news spreading through its platform, WhatsApp said that 20 research teams across the world have been selected, including India, to receive WhatsApp’s award called Misinformation and Social Science Research Awards. The teams would research how false information is spread and how to stop this situation.

To conduct research on the spreading of fake news, the company has spent $1 million. From 600 proposals all over the world, 20 research projects from 11 countries were selected. The amount of $50,000 will be given to each team as a research grant. The aim of this grant is to assist experts and scholars to go through high quality research in countries where WhatsApp is used as the biggest messaging platform and also the source of misinformation.

Whatsapp has admitted that the increase of fake news problem is because of technology driven communication programs. The company said only by tackling the problem directly and understanding human psychology as well as its influence on the civil society’s behavior, the issue of fake news will be overcome. WhatsApp said: “How information processing, social and cognitive variables relate to content’s reliability and the decision to share that content with other people will be examined through these studies”

In previous years, because of extremely low data charges, India has been going through the country’s biggest growth in false information. The threat has been recognized by the Government of India and WhatsApp has been asked to take action in preventing this. Through the study, WhatsApp can fully understand the problem at regional level. Along with this, the company can also clearly understand the cultural and social aspect in how people use its platform.

The receivers of WhatsApp’s research grant consist of Brazil, Mexico, the US, India, Singapore, Israel, Netherlands, Spain, Nigeria, Indonesia and the UK. These recipients will have a meeting in California this week with WhatsApp to discuss about how the company develop its product.