Whatsapp has joined hands with Reliance Jio to curb the spread of fake news and to create awareness about false messages in India. This news came within weeks of Reliance Jio offering preloaded Whatsapp on their budget JioPhone.
Reliance JioPhone
Along with offering low-cost data at high speeds and competitive call tariffs, Reliance also offers internet-enabled budget phone, JioPhone, to the Indian public. Until recently, Whatsapp was not part of JioPhone’s directory, when a week earlier, the messaging service was enabled on all the handsets.
Over 25 million JioPhone users, which included the new customers with nary an internet experience as well, got access to Whatsapp for the first time last month, in August when the service was enabled on the JioPhone handsets by the company. This came at a time when Whatsapp has been fighting the grave threat of fake news.
Mukesh Ambani, Chairman Reliance Group, had launched JioPhone a year ago at a refundable deposit of Rs.1,500 or $20.60. The handset had internet pre-enabled on it but the users couldn’t use Whatsapp on it. In fact, JioPhone lacked quite a few popular smartphone features.
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The False News Menace
Whatsapp has been under the scanner lately, with its messaging service being misused to create panic and incite violence. The company has been battling the menace that such false news has been spreading. With increasing incidents of such violent acts, New Delhi had called Whatsapp to take immediate steps to ‘stop this menace’.
Innumerable incendiary texts and videos are circulating on the platform. Unofficial estimates say that over 30 people have died in mob violence within this year in the country all because of triggering vitriolic messages on Whatsapp and other social media platforms. With cheap data, spreading of fake news through social media has become even easier.
Whatsapp’s partnership with Jio comes on the back of the fact that JioPhone’s key target audience resides in small towns and villages were buying expensive smartphones is economically unviable. These areas are also the ones where caste and religion based violence are part of the norm because of deep-seated prejudices. The acts of violence, according to the local police, have mostly been against the minorities living in such remote and rural areas.
The Combined Plan of Action
To combat the false news hazard, all new JioPhones come with educational material. Carl Woog, Whatsapp spokesperson told Reuters that the material guides the users on how to identify a forwarded message and cautions them about sharing such messages thoughtlessly. Woog said that they are working closely with Reliance Jio in educating Whatsapp users regarding such incendiary messages.
Whatsapp has taken certain measures to quell the rise of such false messages. To educate Whatsapp users, several informative radio and print ad campaigns have been launched. New features such as labeling of forwarded messages as such and limiting the number of users it can be sent to have been introduced on the app.
The company has also partnered with a Delhi-based non-profit DEF (Digital Empowerment Foundation) to broaden the scope of digital literacy in Indian towns and cities. According to Woog, DEF is organising workshops for the same. The latest was in Ranchi last week. The same outreach programme will be made available to existing users of JioPhone.
The Indian Whatsapp Market
India has over 200 million Whatsapp users. Even with such a huge ready market, Whatsapp hasn’t been able to launch its payment services in the country because of India’s insistence on data localisation. Whatsapp is on a hunt for a policy head and chief for India. It recently appointed a grievance officer at its California headquarters for Indian users as well, but India is pushing for US tech giants to set up such offices in India itself.
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