“Make WhatsApp Accountable”: Rema Rajeshwari, Telangana’s Fake News Warrior

collected by :Molly Tony

The only way we can tackle this is by educating them about fake social media rumors repeatedly. Because wherever we went villagers used to tell us that they saw gory and scary videos in WhatsApp. Atleast 80% of the social media users in both the district use WhatsApp and the youngsters use Facebook also. Since people living in rural Telangana respond better to these cultural programmes i decided to use the same to fight fake news and fake social media rumours as well. They trust us immensely when we reach out to them and request them not to believe in social media rumours.

IT Ministry Wants WhatsApp to Prioritise Fake News Issue Over Payments Service Plans

WhatsApp Should Take Fake News Issue on Priority Over Payments Service: Indian IT Ministry

according to A meeting was held between Ajay Prakash Sawhney, who is the IT Secretary and some of the top executives from the chat messaging company, WhatsApp, including the Chief Operating Officer, Mattew Idema. In the meeting, the executives from WhatsApp had showcased the plans developed by them to combat the menace of fake news circulation on its messaging platform. This is similar to other mobile payment systems like PhonePe, Tez by Google and Amazon Pay, all of whom have made headway in the Indian mobile payment service market. However, the official from the ministry has advised that some concerns have been aired to WhatsApp about its payment service platform as well. The last thing that the ministry or WhatsApp want is the leak of user data, which could lead to financial losses.