HYDERABAD: On March 23, a Facebook page named after Nizamabad’s BJP candidate Dharmapuri Arvind shared a post related to the Aasara pension scheme of Telangana. The post claimed that the Aasara pension of Rs 1,000 was contributed in a sharing arrangement of Rs 800 by the Centre and Rs 200 by the State governments. The said post was not only a direct attack on Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, it was also factually incorrect.
An independent fact-checking agency, Factly, later flagged the post’s factual incorrectness and re-posted it along with a link to the official Aasara pension website. They attached the GO explaining how the pension was actually contributed majorly by the State and also attached was a clip of IGNOAPS scheme which showed how the Centre has been contributing Rs 200 or Rs 500, based on the recipient’s age.
After it was flagged, the post continues to remain afloat on Facebook albeit with a removable-cover blurring its contents and a disclaimer reading- “Caution. False Information- Checked by independent fact-checker”. The post can still be viewed, shared, and give a screenshot which can be shared on other platforms -- without any fake news warnings.
Can fake news, once shared, ever die?
The question still stands tall. For instance, the said post on Aasara pensions is available on Sharechat with over 18,000 views and 93 shares on WhatsApp, shared by several users without official accounts.
Though Sharechat has its own fact checking agency to verify all posts that are shared, some may miss the lens as their users flag content on their own. “In recent months, we’ve helped nurture an independent fact-checking company to ensure content that may be...factually incorrect is reviewed and marked...on our platform. We also ensure the virality of such content is reduced,” noted an official from Sharechat.
Meanwhile fact-checkers note that there are ways to work around the fact-checking network and ensure fake news remains in the domain and more work needs to be done to make the system foolproof. “Technology will progress only slowly and make arrangements as and when they see that people are finding ways to navigate around it,” noted Rakesh Reddy Dubbudu, founder of Factly.
WhatsApp’s latest fact-checking tool available in Telugu
In a bid to ward off fake news from its platform, the instant messaging platform, WhatsApp, has started a checkpoint called ‘Tipline’. Available on the number 964300888, a user can forward any suspicious content to the number -- as and when received. A user is required to save the number to their contacts list as well. Once a news story is reported, we are asked if we want to verify its facts. It is also available in Telugu helping over four crore voters in Telugu States to fact check the large number of false news circulating online.