Last week, the Indian authorities handed a regulation that grants one among its personal businesses the facility to find out whether or not on-line content material is factual.

The fact-checking unit will operate equally to how third-party fact-checking already works at social media firms. Fact-checkers can have the power to flag content material associated to the federal government as false or deceptive — which in flip results in content material deamplification, demotion or elimination — besides the method might be managed unilaterally by the federal government’s fact-checking unit.

The unit was arrange, partly, in opposition to the International Fact-Checking Network, a worldwide group of signatories to a code of fact-checking ideas, on which social media firms already rely to guage the veracity of on-line content material. Some officers in India didn’t like that international organizations are in charge of that course of, The Indian Express reported.

“The Indian government’s recent decision to mandate by law the creation of an official state fact-checking body is not an unexpected move. The government had already set up a unit under its Press Information Bureau, calling itself a ‘fact check unit’,” mentioned Jency Jacob, the managing editor of BOOM Fact Check, an Indian fact-checking group and signatory to the IFCN code of ideas. “This unit often issued press releases calling it fact-checking even when its statements were being disputed by journalists.”

Jacob mentioned the mandate was an effort to create extra authorized alternatives for the federal government to implement content material.

“While no one can deny that the spread of misinformation causes real-life harm and disturbances in society and there are valid reasons for it to be dealt by law in some extreme cases, no government can be fully trusted to use it fairly without raising concerns of violation of freedom of speech, especially against those who are critical of the government,” Jacob mentioned.

It stays unclear how the federal government will use the foundations in observe.

“Giving any government body the power to force social media platforms to take down stories that they deem false is fraught with danger and can lead to indirect censorship,” Jacob mentioned. “It may also lead to a chilling effect in some newsrooms, where stories that concern the central government might not get reported to avoid falling foul of the new law.”

(Shutterstock)

• FirstCheck: Fact-check: Home-made juices no antidote for H3N2 flu (English)
  • “With H3N2 cases on the rise, the internet is rife with rumours and misinformation. Can home remedies protect individuals from this virus? Can those with severe acute respiratory infections or influenza-like illnesses count on home-made juices and concoctions to fight the ailment?”
• FactChecker.In: Congress Party’s Claim about Farmers’ Income Is Incorrect (English)
  • “On March 12, 2023, the Indian National Congress (INC) shared a video on its Twitter page highlighting the hardships faced by farmers under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government. The video had several claims about farmer debt, monthly income of farmers and cases of suicide among agricultural labourers and farmers.”
• Les Vérificateurs: Have thousands of electric scooters been abandoned in a landfill? (French)
  • “With the emergence of electric vehicles, the difficulty of recycling materials, and in particular batteries, inevitably arises. As a result, according to a video shared online, landfills would accommodate electric scooters at the end of their life rather than recycling them. … But these viral images instead show vehicles stored in China for regulatory reasons.”
• The Logical Indian: False Communal Spin Given To Massive Explosion In Uttar Pradesh (English)
  • “A set of videos showing a massive explosion in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh, has been widely circulated by media outlets. The viral videos have been shared with the claim alleging that the blast occurred at Mohammad Shafiq’s house, where several people died.” 

(Shutterstock)

From the information: 

• Student Suicides Increased by More Than 30% Between 2017 And 2021: “The National Crime Record Bureau’s (NCRB) Accidental Deaths and Suicides in India (ADSI) report contains comprehensive data on suicides in the country based on the data collated by State/UT police departments. As per the ADSI report, both the number of suicides and the rate of suicides has been increasing in India since 2017 after a decline.” (Factly, Pavithra Ok M)
• Almost all food prices continued to rise in March: “Between February and March, of the eight food categories used by INE to calculate inflation, only one recorded a drop in prices. This continuous trend of pressure on costs borne by consumers already means that food products contribute to 58% of the total year-on-year inflation rate recorded in the country.” (Publico, Sergio Aníbal,)

From/for the group: 

• “Poynter and the International Fact-Checking Network are announcing the opening of applications for funding to support fact-checking initiatives worldwide and reduce the harm of misinformation. Organizations may apply beginning April 14, 2023, to the newly created Global Fact Check Fund for the first phase of the multi-year program, funded by a $13.2 million grant from Google and YouTube.This opening phase is known as BUILD, and is aimed at fact-checking organizations who seek to scale or upgrade their online presence. Funds can be used for improving website development, domain hosting, content management systems, publishing tools, or improving security and resilience against hacking and other threats.”
• Google and YouTube are partnering with the International Fact-Checking Network to distribute a $13.2 million grant to the worldwide fact-checking group. “The world needs fact-checking more than ever before. This partnership with Google and YouTube infuses financial support to global fact-checkers and is a step in the right direction,” mentioned Baybars Örsek, former government director of the IFCN. “And while there’s much work to be done, this partnership has sparked meaningful collaboration and an important step.”
• The IFCN has awarded $450,000 in grant help to organizations working to reduce the influence of false and deceptive info on WhatsApp. In partnership with Meta, the Spread the Facts Grant Program provides verified fact-checking organizations assets to establish, flag and cut back the unfold of misinformation that threatens greater than 100 billion messages every day. The grant helps eleven initiatives from eight nations: India, Spain, Nigeria, Georgia, Bolivia, Italy, Indonesia and Jordan. Read extra concerning the announcement here.
• IFCN job bulletins: Program Officer and Monitoring & Evaluation Specialist

Factually is a publication about fact-checking and misinformation from Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network. Sign up here to obtain it in your e mail each different Thursday.