The Government of India is very concerned about it their internal security and maintain law & order. The IT ministry has warned to whatsapp Inc for the incidents of Mob lynching with fake content spreading from social media platform. Whatsapp aware the importance of this warning and responded instantly with three page of letter to government. Whatsapp has explained in this latter that how will they stop rumors and fake messages.
Innocent people were beaten to death in several parts of the country because of the frenzy fake news on social media. The Indian government warned to WhatsApp for failing to stop misuse of their platform. 29 people were died in a year just because of this fake rumors and viral things which spreading over this social media platforms.
Whatsapp will introduce a new feature to stop fake news
Whatsapp has taken a step to stop spreading rumors and fake news. The company said in the latter that we are already testing new features which can be implemented with below features.
- More control and information will be given to keep users safe.
- The company will adopt two-way strategy. First should be given more control and information about contents to keep people safe and second working actively to stop abuse of Whatsapp.
- There will be clear information about the difference between the forward message and the message sent by a person. Whatsapp is testing such kind of feature which will give full information to user. The user will be able to know which messages are forwarded and which are originals. Whatsapp will track the massages decide that messages are forwarded or not.
- Group admin will take the decision that which user will send message. This will prevent the spread of unwanted messages or rumors.
- User can give full report to whatsapp of broadcasting unwanted messages or can block it.
- Whatsapp will educate users by sending content and organize the literacy workshops for use of social media.
- Whatsapp is working with fact checking organization which will identify rumors and fake news.
- The company has worked in this direction with news channels of Brazil and can be applied in India too.
- Company will start the fact checking organization boom live service in India.
Suspicious Link Detection Feature
Whatsapp is testing on suspicious link detection feature to stop spreading of rumors. Users will be able to find suspicious link from contents. Currently it is part of android 2.18.204 beta version. The company has tested forwarded label on message to identify forwarded message in beta version.
Whatsapp System will analyze the links automatically from received messages. And detect if links connected to any fake website or not. Such website can be harmful to users. The suspicious link contents will be marked with red color label so user can understand the behavior of such messages.
25 % people connected with Whatsapp group
There is still doubt about that how this feature will restrict spread fake messages because Whatsapp data shows that only 25% peoples are associated with whatsapp group in India and the number of joining group members are less than 10.
The government was told before to facebook’s subsidiary whatsapp that company would take immediate measures to prevent broadcasting of “Malicious and explosive messages” which can increase incidence of Mob lynching. Ministry of Information and Technology warned to whatsapp that they cannot escape from their responsibilities in this matter.
