व्हाट्सप्प कस्टमर केयर नंबर इंडिया फ्री नंबर - vhaatsapp kastamar keyar nambar indiya phree nambar

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WhatsApp announced on Tuesday that people in India can send unverified information or rumours they receive on their phone to WhatsApp number +91-9643-000-888 to cross check the information.

However, with less than ten days to go for the first phase of polling for the general elections, not everyone is convinced about the efficacy of this new initiative.

Launched by PROTO, an India-based media skilling startup, WhatsApp said this 'tipline' will help create a database of rumours to study misinformation during elections for Checkpoint - a research project commissioned and technically assisted by WhatsApp.

WhatsApp said news consultancy Dig Deeper Media, and San Francisco based Meedan, which builds digital tools for verification and fact checking and has worked on projects like Electionland in the US and CrossCheck in France, are helping PROTO in developing the verification and research frameworks for India.

WhatsApp did not specify if it will publically disclose details of the work done and requests processed, if need be. It said Meedan will maintain the database of rumours that will be processed and has developed the technology for verification of rumours.

"If it is a known rumor the user will get a quick response. If it is a new rumor, it will take some time for the verification center to determine if it can be verified," a spokesperson from the company said.

To do so, they have expanded their Check platform (developed for recent elections in Mexico and France) and integrated it with the WhatsApp Business API, to receive and respond to messages at scale.

The company said if 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 response will indicate if the information is classified as true, false, misleading, disputed or out of scope and will include any other related information that is available.

This centre will review rumours in the form of pictures, video links or text in four regional languages including Hindi, Telugu, Bengali and Malayalam, other than English. WhatsApp said PROTO will also encourage grassroots organisations to submit rumours circulating across different regions in India during the election period.

"With less than ten days to go for the first phase of polling, the details right now are sketchy to begin with. Given the ubiquity of the platform, this helpline will explode and more details are needed. What will be the time taken to respond to queries, and who will they depend on for fact checking and cross checking of information? Will other fact checkers and news agencies be a part of this," said a social media observer.

To test the helpline, Shammas Oliyath, founder of Check4Spam, a non-profit entity that verifies posts on social media, sent a message on the WhatsApp number. He said he is yet to get a response on his already debunked message.

"I sent them a message on this fake news that has already been debunked by fact checkers on NRIs being allowed to vote from abroad. There is no reply and if it's automated, I should have gotten a reply by now. It's probably in its infancy stage and we need to know more," said Oliyath.

"WhatsApp is the main source of fake news and misinformation. If there's an option on WhatsApp itself, that's the best thing to happen, but it should be timely and automated. Things have to be swift and automated considering the scale at which fake news is being generated. The Business API that they have right now is not good enough to automate it at scale," he added.

PROTO’s founders Ritvvij Parrikh and Nasr ul Hadi said as more data flows in, they will be able to identify the most susceptible or affected issues, locations, languages, regions and more.

"The verification reports we send back will encourage our grassroots-level “listening posts” to send more signals for analysis," they insist.

Following the project, PROTO plans to submit learnings to the International Center for Journalists to help other organisations learn from the design and operations of this project.

"The research from this initiative will help create a global benchmark for those wishing to tackle misinformation in their own markets. This is also innovation in verifying data around elections in a way that is accessible to those who need it in exactly the place they need it," said Fergus Bell, founder and CEO, Dig Deeper Media.

The government wants to crack down on fake and inflammatory posts that have sparked violence, including public lynching, across India. Intermediary guidelines set to be announced after elections will probably include penalties and jail terms for executives of social media companies and messaging apps for noncompliance on matters such as message traceability, ET reported March 23.

WhatsApp has defended its stance on privacy previously and said tracing messages on WhatsApp would undermine end-to-end encryption and the private nature of WhatsApp, creating the potential for serious misuse.

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