Fake News Helpline: WhatsApp Launches New Service To Tackle Deepfake Threat In India

WhatsApp continues with its efforts to thwart fake news and misinformation on the platform in India, and now it has launched a helpline which caters to these needs. The helpline will be offered in the form of a WhatsApp chatbot for users in the country from March onwards. Meta is partnering with the Misinformation Combat Alliance (MCA) to get this service up and running in the country.

The helpline will inform and alert users about possible deepfake threats and content floating on the messaging platform from other sources. Without sharing the exact details about the chatbot/helpline, WhatsApp users in India will get the service working in English, Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu among others, with more regional languages to be added in the coming months.

WhatsApp is extremely popular in the country, and it has become an easy platform on which content and news can spread like a wildfire.

The last thing Meta and WhatsApp wants in an election year is the platform encouraging fake news and deepfake content that invariably brings unwanted attention from the government agencies and further actions. India is one of the markets where WhatsApp decided to limit forwarding messages to five in order to curtail its virality, especially if the content is contentious.

Chatbots are becoming the prime source of providing details and WhatsApp will rely on its pool of fact-checking teams to make sure the content is filtered and the fake stuff doesn’t circulate widely. We will test the helpline when it launches next month and see if WhatsApp has a credible product that can help people from falling for fake news.