HYDERABAD: A day after WhatsApp released its new feature called ‘Tipline’ — essentially, a phone number to which one can report suspicious or probable fake news messages — it appears that the feature may not actually debunk the fake news but merely collect/analyse it.
After various users saved the helpline number and sent to it messages that they thought were fake, the feature failed to elicit a response for its authenticity. Several messages regarding the authenticity of certain suspected fake news about ‘tender votes’ and three ticks of WhatsApp, which have been going viral across State, fetched this response, “Thank you, we’ve received your request and you should hear from us shortly”.
Data experts from the city said that the WhatsApp Tipline was only a research project that collected data one sent to it and analysed the nature of fake news. “It is like a pilot exercise for WhatsApp because, earlier, when a person sent a message due to their encryption, only the sender and recipient could see the message. There was no means for WhatsApp to see it. Now, the messenger has come up with its own number to which users can forward these chats. It can read and analyse them directly,” said Srinivas Kodali, a data scientist and independent researcher.
Tipline had also released a certain FAQ which explained that the data they collected would be used know how fake news worked in various regions, language, and locations.