Under the ‘Times Verified’ campaign, readers send suspicious messages circulating on social media to this paper on the WhatsApp number 9819888887. To verify their credibility, our expert panel— comprising reporters, editors and representatives from the municipality and government — taps into its sources.
Since the national launch of the ‘Times Verified’ initiative on November 21 last year, TOI ’s editorial team has received nearly 1. 5 lakh messages, half of which turned out to be false. Besides misleading international headlines such as, “According to the IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook, India will be poorer than Bangladesh by 2025 & is no longer a developing nation” to “Getting US visa appointments in India will not take more than 5 working days, starting 1st May 2023. More than 2,000 people deployed in US consulate to fast track processes”, the misinformation also included messages like, “In order to provide employment to the women of the country, the central government is providing free sewing machines to women under the ‘Prime Minister’s Free Sewing Machine Scheme 2023’. ”
To guard against rising instances of online scams and fake news in India , media and information literacy is critical, stated experts in an online publication recently.
In this scenario, the role of our vigilant army of chain-breakers becomes significant. The alert brigade includes Maharashtra’s K V Nair and Ganesh Shetye, Haryana’s Nav Jyot Kalra, Karnataka’s Sudersan S and Bihar’s Haridarshan Ram.