You can now debunk thousands of coronavirus-related hoaxes with a few texts on WhatsApp.
Poynter Institute, a nonprofit organization that supports journalism, today launched a bot on WhatsApp to help people across the globe debunk over 4,000 hoaxes, including whether the infection originated in a lab in Wuhan, China. (No conclusive evidence yet.)
The chatbot relies on information supplied by over 100 independent fact-checkers in more than 70 countries. It’s the largest database of debunked falsehoods related to COVID-19, said Poynter Institute. The service is currently available in English, but support for other languages including Hindi, Spanish, and Portuguese will be rolled out soon.
Users can test the chatbot by either saving +1 (727) 2912606 as a contact number and texting the word ‘hi’. Alternatively, they can click on http://poy.nu/ifcnbot that does not require them to save the chatbot’s number to their phonebook.
Once they have texted ‘hi’ to the bot, sending ‘1’ (and then waiting for the chatbot to respond, which can take 2-3 seconds) prompts a new message from the bot, which asks them to enter the keyword of their query. Here you can type “origin,” “garlic” (to know if there is any evidence that this herb helps in fighting with coronavirus; there isn’t), or any other keyword.
The chatbot identifies a user’s country (by checking their mobile country code), and provides them with information that has been fact-checked by their closest organization. The chatbot also shares general tips to fight the coronavirus outbreak, and offers transparency on the nearest fact-checkers a person has.
The chatbot says on WhatsApp that it may aggregate and share anonymous results of user queries and other interactions with the research community and program partners. But that, “your personal information, however, will never be shared.”
In a statement, Baybars Orsek, IFCN’s Director, commented: “Billions of users rely on WhatsApp to stay in touch with their friends and families every month. Since bad actors use every single platform to disseminate falsehoods, to mislead others during such troubling times, fact-checkers’ work is more important than ever.”
The new chatbot is the latest effort from WhatsApp, used by more than 2 billion people, to curb the spread of misinformation on its platform. In recent months WhatsApp has also collaborated with the WHO to launch an information service that reached more than 10 million users within days. The Facebook-owned service is also working with federal and state governments in many markets to help them deliver authoritative information about the infectious disease in many countries.
WhatsApp, which recently introduced new limit on forwarding messages on its app that has significantly cut down the number of forwards it sees on the platform, donated $1 million to Poynter Institute’s International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) in March.
More to follow…
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