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Social media giant Meta on Tuesday launched an integrated safety campaign in an effort to drive awareness around the importance of misinformation.
The ‘Know What’s Real’ campaign by the tech giant aims to educate users on identifying and addressing misinformation on WhatsApp and Instagram by promoting digital best practices and highlighting available safety tools.
The eight-week-long campaign will highlight in-built product features and safety measures present on WhatsApp like block and report, forward labels, among others.
It will also encourage people to verify information that sounds suspicious or inaccurate via fact-checking organisations on WhatsApp Channels, said the company.
On Instagram, the partner fact-checkers put warning labels around inaccurate or misleading content, said the company. It also limits the reach of content that is labelled “False” by our fact-checkers so fewer people can see it, under its existing mechanisms.
Through this campaign, Meta will further encourage people to not forward or share any inauthentic content and instead report the same to the Grievance Officer or any of the independent fact-checking partners to verify information.
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Commenting on the programme, Shivnath Thukral, director, public policy India, Meta, said, “Meta is committed to fighting misinformation online. We have invested in industry-leading programmes like setting up a robust network of independent fact-checkers that work to debunk false claims and help citizens access reliable information, including collaborating with Misinformation Combat Alliance (MCA) to launch a WhatsApp tipline to curb AI-generated misinformation.”
Last week, Meta had announced a dedicated fact-checking WhatsApp chatbot in an effort to combat artificial intelligence (AI) generated misinformation, particularly deepfakes, in collaboration with MCA.
Further, the company also runs a fact-checking programme in India which includes partnerships with 11 independent fact-checking organisations, which can verify content in 15 Indian languages and English.
“The campaign is an extension of our ongoing efforts to prevent the spread of misinformation and serves as a simple safety guide to educate people on the role they can play to combat it,” Thukral added.
